ETHZilla – originally 180 Life Sciences – recently completed a $425 million PIPE financing backed by over 60 institutional and crypto‑native investors. Some of its participants include: Harbour Island, Electric Capital, Polychain Capital, GSR, Omicron Technologies, and Lido, among others.
In this interview, we speak with McAndrew Rudisill, the incoming chairman of ETHZilla’s board of directors, to understand how the firm plans to leverage the DeFi Council’s non-binding advisory input, uphold accountability, and stay fully committed to Ethereum, avoiding altcoin diversification even as broader market trends shift in that direction.
1. You aim to outperform traditional ETH staking using a mix of staking, lending, liquidity provisioning, and private agreements. Can you share risk parameters and expected yield bands?
We aim to generate higher yields than traditional ETH staking through a variety of proprietary Ethereum network-based strategies.
2. The announcement states that the DeFi Council will “offer input” on treasury deployment. Will this input be binding or advisory? And how will accountability and transparency for those decisions be maintained publicly?
These agreements are for general advisory purposes, not binding. The council gives access to their respective Ethereum protocols, which Electric Capital, as the independent asset manager, will determine how to use to generate yield. The Etherealize team will provide access to real-world assets that can generate yield on-chain as assets are codified.
3. You’ve secured participation from over 60 institutional and crypto-native investors. Beyond capital, what specific advisory or network value do these investors bring to ETHZilla’s strategy?
There is a diverse mix of traditional finance and DeFi investors in this deal. All of the DeFi Council members have invested in this deal.
4. ETHZilla is focusing its treasury on ETH rather than Bitcoin. What are the strategic reasons behind choosing Ethereum over BTC as a reserve asset? What makes ETH an increasingly attractive asset?
ETH is one of the most valuable cryptocurrencies in the world because it can be used for people to build apps and financial tools to manage assets and generate yield. ETH has inherent yield, and real-world assets will be brought onchain with ETH, which will bring the transaction volume to an exponential rise.
This will positively impact the price of ETH. A true yield curve will be built on Ethereum, and we can generate yield by holding Ethereum.
5. The boost in ETF inflows and corporate adoption appears to be a major factor behind ETH’s rally this month. Do you have a year-end price target for ETH?
We directionally think ETH is going up, and the percentage change could be quite large relative to where we are today. Similar to BTC, we are in the early innings for ETH. We are building this for the long term and are focused on ETH appreciation as network adoption rises.
ETHZilla has confirmed that it will not pursue any non‑ETH allocations and will maintain a strict Ethereum-only treasury strategy despite broader market trends toward altcoin diversification.
