ETHZilla Sells Ethereum to Buy Aircraft Engines, Pivoting Sharply to Tokenisation Strategy

ETHZilla, which had promoted an Ethereum (ETH)-centric treasury strategy, has shifted course to a real-world asset tokenisation strategy by adding aircraft engines to its assets. The move signals that strategy changes among digital-asset treasury companies are gathering pace amid a pullback in crypto prices.

According to CoinDesk on the 25th (local time), ETHZilla said in a filing submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that it has established a new subsidiary, “ETHZilla Aerospace,” and purchased two aircraft engines for a total of $12.2 million. The engines are CFM56-7B24 models and are currently leased to major airlines.

ETHZilla signed a management agreement with Aero Engine Solutions to operate the engines, and the deal also includes terms allowing it to demand the purchase or sale of each engine at $3 million at the end of the lease. In the aviation industry, leasing spare engines is a common business model, and demand is said to be rising amid a global supply shortage.

The investment followed ETHZilla’s large-scale sale of Ethereum. The company sold $40 million worth of Ethereum in October last year to fund share buybacks, and in December it disposed of an additional $74.5 million to repay debt. The total amount of Ethereum sold over the past few months reached $114.5 million.

ETHZilla recently said on X that it is “building a tokenisation pipeline centred on real-world assets with predictable cash flows,” adding that it plans to unveil its first tokenised asset in the first quarter of this year.