180 Life Sciences Goes Full DeFi: $425M Ethereum Treasury Gamble Aims to Crown It ’ETHZilla’

Biotech meets blockchain in a high-stakes bet that’s got Wall Street blinking. 180 Life Sciences just dropped $425 million into Ethereum—not for R&D, but as a treasury reserve asset. Talk about a pivot.

From Lab Coats to Lambos?

The move positions the clinical-stage company as one of the first biotech firms to allocate more to crypto than pipette tips. Their target? To become 'ETHZilla'—a monstrous hybrid of life sciences and decentralized finance dominance.

Wall Street analysts are already sharpening their knives. 'Nothing says ‘growth strategy’ like YOLO-ing nine figures into volatile crypto,' quipped one fund manager. But with Ethereum hovering near all-time highs, 180’s gamble could either mint them as visionaries—or leave them as a cautionary tweet.

From biotech to blockchain: The ETHZilla playbook

The pivot appears to be a calculated bet on Ethereum’s dual role as both a store of value and a yield engine. Unlike Bitcoin treasury plays, where accumulation is the endgame, ETHZilla’s strategy hinges on active participation in Ethereum’s financial ecosystem.

Per the statement, Electric Capital, the firm tapped to manage its assets, will deploy a multi-pronged approach: staking for base rewards, liquidity provisioning in DeFi markets, and private lending agreements designed to outperform passive holdings.

“We believe that this planned strategy reflects a strong, long-term investment approach that can be supported by a highly capable team and a transformative transaction,” said Blair Jordan, CEO of 180 Life Sciences. “We plan to execute a differentiated investment approach that will be designed to provide a straightforward opportunity for investors to participate in the growth of Ethereum through the public markets.”

The roster of backers reads like a who’s who of Ethereum’s builder class: Polychain Capital, Lido co-founder Konstantin Lomashuk, Eigenlayer’s Sreeram Kannan, and Compound’s Robert Leshner are among the 60-plus institutional and crypto-native investors in the $425 million PIPE. Their involvement signals a tacit endorsement of ETHZilla’s thesis that corporate ETH holdings should actively engage with the protocols reshaping finance.

The corporate ETH arms race heats up

ETHZilla’s MOVE aligns with a broader trend that has quietly accelerated over the past two months. Standard Chartered’s latest report reveals corporate ETH treasuries now hold 1% of circulating supply, roughly 1.26 million Ether tokens accumulated since June. According to the bank, this buying spree parallels ETH ETFs’ record inflows, highlighting how new players are pivoting aggressively to the world’s second-largest crypto asset by market cap.

Analyst Geoffrey Kendrick predicts these holdings could increase tenfold, eventually reaching 10% of supply. Firms like BitMine, which is aiming for 5% of ETH’s supply, and Consensys-backed SharpLink Gaming are already DEEP in the game.

For ETHZilla, the pivot remains a high-stakes experiment, where the risks are as pronounced as the rewards. Besides accumulation supremacy battles, managing on-chain yield requires navigating smart contract vulnerabilities, liquidity crunches, and regulatory gray zones, challenges even DeFi natives struggle with.

Yet if successful, the model could redefine how public companies interact with crypto: not as passive holders, but as active ecosystem participants.