Peter Thiel went to zero in ETHZilla, and ETH treasury company trading got a lot more real
On February 17, an amended 13G/A posted on the ETHZilla investor site listed vehicles related to Peter Thiel and the Founders Fund at zero shares and 0.0% beneficial ownership.
The filing also marked an “event date” of Dec. 31, 2025, which sets the timeline for what the document captures, a snapshot of beneficial ownership that happens on a compliance clock.
Bloomberg reports that Thiel and his founding fund have actually left the company altogether, completing a simple arc that has been building for months.
In August 2025, the founder of Palantir was an important stakeholder. A Schedule 13D filing showed 11,592,241 shares and 7.5% beneficial ownership, with an August 4 event date. The position then declined. An amendment filed on November 14 reported 928,389 shares, an increase of 5.6% as of September 30.
This sequence becomes more compelling when we remember what ETHZilla wanted to represent: a public market attempt to bottle the strategy playbook (formerly MicroStrategy) and release it on Ethereum, with a Nasdaq ticker and a treasury story aimed at investors who prefer brokerages to wallets.
The file that turns the rumor into a number
The February 17 amendment is the sharpest version of “total exit” the public markets have ever thrown at you, but it appears shareholders had already priced it in after Thiel’s 2025 selloff. Since August of last year, ETHZ shares have fallen 95%, from around $74 to just over $3.50.
The company was clearly under pressure, beyond just insider selling. In a January 2026 8-K, ETHZilla said it sold 3,965.83 ETH for $12.58 million at an average price of $3,173.67, and disclosed a remaining balance of approximately 65,850 ETH. A month earlier, there was a much larger sell-off, of around $74.5 million in ETH, linked to debt pressure and a pullback from the pure cash position.
In a February 2026 8-K, the company disclosed that it had repurchased all outstanding senior secured convertible notes, paying $516.148 million in principal and $87.745 million in redemption premium, plus interest.
It’s the sound of expensive capital in a market that has begun to evaluate cash company structures with less patience.
This is all part of a larger story that has been forming across the category.
Crypto-treasury companies rely on buybacks and leverage as stock prices collapse, and this broader context gives Thiel’s “0.0%” a different kind of gravitas.
The macroeconomic problem, the carry seems thin and the financing seems expensive
A cash flow strategy always ends up living within the macro. In the easy phase of this transaction, stocks trade at a premium to the underlying crypto, funding becomes the fuel, and the loop feeds itself. ETH has an additional layer here, as staking yield and derivative carry become inputs into the spreadsheet.
Currently, these contributions appear as modest cushions.
Public dashboards that track the basis of ETH futures show low-single-digit annualized carry across all timeframes. Staking yield indices are in the same vicinity, with an index of approximately 2.8% annualized.
When carry is low, management decisions matter more. ETH sales matter more. Debt terms matter more. The conditions for issuing shares matter more. And the market is starting to treat the ticker as a judgment on execution rather than just a proxy.
Treasury company transactions ultimately rely on the belief that a public company can hold a volatile asset and remain stable when the market moves. Thiel’s exit doesn’t explain why, but it plants a flag at the end of a timeline.
Three paths from here, and the numbers that will tell you which one you are in
It is helpful to name the forks in the road and attach each fork to a small set of observable signals.
- One path is the reopening of a premium loop. ETH is stabilizing, risk appetite is returning, and treasury companies are regaining room to fund growth without shrinking the base stack. The clues appear in the filings: fewer cash cuts, sharper increases and a market willing to pay for exposure again.
- A second path is the discount trap. The shares trade at a chronic discount to the underlying securities, and the company finances its operations, acquisitions and debt service by selling part of the stack. This version evolves slowly and appears like a constant drip-drip of “cash flow update” math.
- A third way is reflective relaxation. A sharp decline in ETH responds to tight funding conditions, forced selling accelerates, and stocks begin to behave like a stress gauge. This version grabs headlines and typically leaves fingerprints in short windows of repeated actions on the balance sheet.
We can also use a simple digital framework to keep our focus on reality. ETHZilla disclosed approximately 65,850 ETH remaining in its January 2026 8-K. An earlier disclosure trail noted 19,301,223 shares outstanding, and this share count gives us a rough way to translate the value of ETH into a “per share” intuition.
At $2,000 ETH, 65,850 ETH represents approximately $131.7 million in ETH value. Spread across 19.3 million shares, that’s about $6.80 per share in ETH value before cash, debt, operating expenses, and other balance sheet items come into play.
At $1,500 ETH, the ballpark figure is closer to $5.10. At $3,000 ETH, it stands at around $10.20. The point here is sensitivity, small movements in ETH and small changes in funding conditions can swing the story quickly.
What to watch next, the breadcrumbs that keep this from becoming a one-day meme
Start with the ETH balance. The next time ETHZilla updates this number in an 8-K or periodic report, direction matters and magnitude matters.
Next, look at the capital structure. The debt repayment disclosed in the February 2026 8-K came with a significant premium, and any replacement financing, equity issuance, or new structured instrument will tell you what kind of market access the company still has.
Then observe the strategic surface. The more the company relies on adjacent bets and broader asset themes, the more the ticker becomes a vision of management’s ability to maintain a coherent story under pressure. This tension appears in the language of the company’s prospectus regarding the shares and the selling shareholders.
Finally, keep the macro dials in mind, as they set the ceiling on how easy this trade can become. The futures base curve and stake yield levels are not side anecdotes, they directly feed into how treasury companies’ strategies look on paper and how they feel on a decline.
Many crypto stories end with vibrations. This ends with a line item and the line item says 0.0%. Thield’s belief in this Ethereum cash vehicle was short-lived, so the question becomes: what does he know that other Ethereum investors don’t? Was it poor investor relations with ETHZilla or a broader problem with the business model?
