Ethereum Bet Deepens: Billionaire Peter Thiel Takes 7.5% Of ETHZilla

Peter Thiel is doubling down on the emerging “corporate Ethereum treasury” trade. A fresh Schedule 13G filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission shows entities affiliated with Thiel’s Founders Fund have amassed a 7.5% passive stake in 180 Life Sciences Corp. (Nasdaq: ATNF), which is rebranding as ETHZilla and pivoting its business to accumulating Ether and generating on-chain yield.

Peter Thiel Doubles Down On Ethereum

The disclosure, signed “/s/ Peter Thiel” on August 11, confirms beneficial ownership across multiple Founders Fund vehicles totaling roughly 11.6 million ATNF shares—7.5% of the float. The market reaction was immediate. ATNF shares more than tripled on Tuesday, closing near $10.24—about 207% above Monday’s close—before cooling in after-hours trading.

ETHZilla’s pivot is not theoretical. In a press release furnished to the SEC on August 12, the company disclosed “total holdings of 82,186 Ether (‘ETH’) at an average acquisition price of $3,806.71,” valuing the position at approximately $349 million as of August 11. It also reported about $238 million in US dollar cash equivalents on the balance sheet.

Executive chairman McAndrew Rudisill framed the strategy as a purpose-built, institutional ETH reserve that will be actively deployed into staking and on-chain yield strategies run by an external manager: “At ETHZilla we have put over $350 million in capital to work since the PIPE transaction we completed last week… as we seek to deliver on our on-chain yield generation program through our external asset manager Electric Capital.”

Those disclosures cap a rapid financing sequence backing the accumulation plan. On August 4, ETHZilla closed a $425 million private placement, followed one week later by approximately $156 million of senior secured convertible notes due 2028. Each financing explicitly cited the goal of “rapidly” increasing the company’s ETH holdings.

Thiel’s move into ETHZilla arrives less than a month after his group revealed a 9.1% passive stake in BitMine Immersion Technologies (NYSE American: BMNR), the most aggressive of the public “ETH treasury” cohort. That earlier 13G similarly listed Thiel as signatory and helped ignite a rally in BMNR.

Notably, The BitMine drumbeat grew louder again this week. On Tuesday, the company filed to enlarge its at-the-market equity program by another $20 billion—lifting total capacity to $24.5 billion—to finance additional ETH accumulation. The expansion was memorialized in a same-day Form 8-K and prospectus supplement.

Tom Lee, co-founder of Fundstrat and Chairman of the Board of Directors at BitMine, is pursuing one of the largest Ethereum accumulation strategies in history through his company. BitMine has already amassed about 1.2 million ETH—roughly $5 billion worth—putting it 20% of the way toward its target of controlling 5% of Ethereum’s total supply.

Taken together, the signal from Thiel is unambiguous. After the 9.1% BitMine disclosure in mid-July, the 7.5% ETHZilla stake marks his second material bet on an Ethereum-first corporate treasury in less than a month, displaying the kind of high-conviction wager that ETH’s appreciation will outpace dilution, financing costs, and mark-to-market volatility—justifying aggressive balance-sheet accumulation now for outsized upside later.

At press time, ETH traded at $4,655.