Peter Thiel's Ethereum gamble reveals unrealized gains! ETHZilla's 7.5% stake saw a big pump of 200% in a single day, as Wall Street reconstructs financial infrastructure into a new narrative for Ethereum.

Billionaire Peter Thiel has become one of the biggest winners in this round of Ethereum rise. His founded Founders Fund holds a 7.5% stake in the transformed bet on Ethereum company ETHZilla, which saw its market capitalization soar from $18 million to $741 million in two weeks; additionally, the 9.1% stake in Bitmine Immersion Technologies has increased over 1000% during the same period. Thiel's team firmly believes that Ethereum will become a new type of financial infrastructure on Wall Street, with institutions like BlackRock and Goldman Sachs already deploying on-chain funds.

Low-key layout: From PayPal godfather to Ethereum believer

As the co-founder of PayPal, an early investor in Facebook, and a long-time supporter of U.S. Vice President JD Vance, Peter Thiel has quietly laid out his plans for the Ethereum ecosystem through his Founders Fund:

• ETHZilla: A biotechnology company has transformed into a treasury asset company holding Ethereum, with Thiel holding 7.5% of the shares. Its stock price surged 200% on the day of the investment disclosure, with market capitalization jumping from $18 million at the end of July to the current $741 million.
• Bitmine Immersion Technologies: Thiel Holdings 9.1%, the company recently raised $250 million to purchase Ethereum, with a rise of over 1000% since the end of June, reaching a market capitalization of $8.3 billion. Although these gains are relatively small compared to its holding in Palantir (whose stock price has surged significantly this year due to Trump's second term policies), it reflects Thiel's long-term belief in Ethereum.

Wall Street On-Chain: Ethereum Becomes the New Foundation of Financial Infrastructure

Three insiders from the Teal team revealed that their investment logic is based on "Ethereum will become an alternative infrastructure to traditional dollar and stock settlement systems":

• Institutional Practice: The tokenized money market funds of BlackRock and Franklin Templeton are operating on the Ethereum network.
• Competitive Landscape: Goldman Sachs and BNY Mellon have launched a currency fund token based on a self-built chain, indicating that Ethereum will face inter-chain competition from traditional financial giants.
• On-chain data: In 2024, Ethereum's on-chain transaction volume reached $1.2 trillion (compared to $960 billion in the same period last year), with major transactions including USDT, USDC stablecoins, and exchange deposits and withdrawals (Nansen data)

Risk Warning: The gap between narrative and reality

Despite the optimistic outlook, analysts still point out three major risks:

1. Uncertainty of application implementation: Nansen researcher Nicolai Søndergaard pointed out that "Wall Street's rebuilding of financial infrastructure on Ethereum is currently just sales talk."
2. Network pollution issue: Some on-chain activities involve phishing attacks and other malicious behaviors.
3. Speculative driving attribute: The current rise may stem from funds seeking alternatives to Bitcoin rather than verifying the actual value of Ethereum.

Policy Tailwind: Trump's Crypto-Friendly Policies Accelerate Adoption

After the passage of the "Genius Act" promoted by the Trump administration:

• The legalization of stablecoins is being promoted, and banks, technology companies, and even retailers may widely adopt dollar-pegged tokens.
• Treasury Secretary Scott Bancen hinted that stablecoins could help control national debt by increasing demand for U.S. Treasuries.

It is worth mentioning that Thiel has deep connections with Ethereum: co-founder Vitalik Buterin once dropped out to start a business after receiving the Thiel Fellowship, and Joey Krug, who created the Augur prediction market in 2014, also joined the Founders Fund to lead the crypto strategy in 2023.

Conclusion

Peter Thiel's Ethereum layout reveals a new paradigm in the integration of traditional capital and blockchain: by transforming into an Ethereum holding vehicle through a publicly listed company, it both avoids the risks of direct coin holding and enjoys the valuation premium in the secondary market. Although the on-chain narrative on Wall Street still faces skepticism, substantial deployments by institutions like BlackRock and policy support from the Trump administration have formed a dual drive. Investors should be wary of the risks of concept hype, but in the medium to long term, they can pay attention to infrastructure projects in the Ethereum ecosystem that have real cash flow, especially in the RWA (Real World Asset) tokenization sector.