Thiel-backed ETHZilla to deploy $100 million in ETH with liquid restaking protocol EtherFi

ETHZilla Corporation, the Ethereum digital asset treasury (DAT) backed by Peter Thiel, said on Tuesday it plans to deploy $100 million worth of ETH with liquid restaking protocol EtherFi in order to pursue higher yield returns.

"By deploying $100 million into liquid restaking, we're reinforcing Ethereum's security while unlocking incremental yield opportunities to enhance returns on our treasury holdings," ETHZilla Executive Chairman McAndrew Rudisill said in a statement. "Partnering with EtherFi marks a pivotal step in our engagement with DeFi, aligning innovation with prudent asset stewardship."

Ethereum liquid restaking protocols have recently experienced significant growth, with total value locked (TVL) across platforms hitting $30 billion. This surge comes as native ETH staking has seen increased withdrawal activity, with validators exiting the traditional staking mechanism in favor of other opportunities.

EtherFi enables users to access restaking yields via EigenLayer. When ranked by TVL, EtherFi is the top liquid staking protocol ahead of Eigenpie.

ETHZilla's supply of Ethereum recently rose to over 100,000 tokens. The DAT trades on the Nasdaq under the ticker.

Last month, ETHZilla closed a $425 million private placement, which had over 60 participants, including Electric Capital, Polychain Capital, GSR, Konstantin Lomashuk (co-founder of Lido and p2p.org), and Sreeram Kannan (founder of Eigenlayer).

ETHZilla, previously 180 Life Sciences Corp., saw its shares jump more than 90% last month after it was announced Thiel had become a shareholder.

Tom Lee's BitMine and Joe Lubin's SharpLink rank one and two among DATs dedicated to buying Ethereum, according to data from SER. BitMine holds approximately 1.8 million ETH, and SharpLink holds 837,000 ETH.

ETHZ traded down 1% to $2.78 per share at publication time, giving the company a market capitalization of around $480 million.