ETHZilla’s Skyward Leap: Jet Engines, Tokens, and the Great Crypto Circus

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Finance

What masquerade is this?

  • ETHZilla, that peculiar beast of the crypto jungle, has snatched two jet engines in a $12.2 million spree, as the scrolls of regulatory filings reveal.
  • Previously, this same creature divested itself of $114.5 million in ETH, a move as desperate as a drowning man clutching at straws, to fund stock buybacks and silence its creditors.
  • Might this acquisition be a mere sideshow in ETHZilla’s grand pivot to asset tokenization? The company, now hand-in-hand with a regulated broker-dealer, schemes to drag auto loans and home loans into the blockchain’s maw.

Behold, the latest folly of ETHZilla, that Ethereum-besotted treasury firm! Having cast off a substantial portion of its crypto hoard like a snake shedding its skin, it now turns its gaze skyward, adding jet engines to its ledger. A curious spectacle, is it not?

On a Friday, no less, a filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) unveiled that this crypto titan had acquired two CFM56-7B24 aircraft engines for $12.2 million through its newly hatched offspring, ETHZilla Aerospace LLC. A bold stroke, though one wonders if the company has taken leave of its senses.

These engines, presently leased to a major airline, are now under the stewardship of Aero Engine Solutions, which, for a modest monthly fee, shall ensure their well-being. The arrangement includes a buy-sell option, a dance where either party may compel the other to buy or sell the engines for $3 million each upon the lease’s expiration, provided the engines remain in a state of respectable decay.

Odd? Indeed, for a firm steeped in the arcane arts of crypto, this venture into the mundane world of jet engines and leases is as unexpected as a cat attending a dog show. Yet, in the aerospace realm, such dealings are as commonplace as rain in Moscow.

Airline operators, those masters of the skies, lease jet engines as spares, a precaution against the whims of fate. Should their primary engine falter, the show must go on. Companies like AerCap, Willis Lease Finance Corporation, and SMBC Aero Engine Lease thrive in this shadowed corner of commerce.

The aerospace business, it seems, is gripped by a shortage of engines, with IATA prophesying that its airline members shall be forced to cough up $2.6 billion to lease additional spares by 2025. The global aircraft engine leasing market, a behemoth, is set to swell from $11.17 billion in 2025 to $15.56 billion by 2031, growing at a pace of 5.68% CAGR, according to the soothsayers at TechSci Research.

The Tokenization Charade

This bizarre maneuver unfolds against the backdrop of digital asset treasuries under siege, as the crypto markets tumble like a house of cards in a windstorm. Public firms, once flush with tokens, now trade at a pittance, their net asset value a distant memory.

ETHZilla, too, has felt the bite. In October, it sold $40 million in ETH to fund a stock buyback, a desperate attempt to prop up its sagging fortunes. December saw another $74.5 million in ETH liquidated to silence its creditors. Yet, its stock has plummeted 97% since its August zenith, a fall as dramatic as any in a Bulgakov novel.

But fear not, for the acquisition of jet engines may be but a piece in ETHZilla’s grand mosaic of tokenized real-world assets (RWAs). In a December missive to its shareholders, the company unveiled its plan to tokenize assets in league with Liquidity.io, a regulated broker-dealer and SEC-registered alternative trading system (ATS). Prior to this, ETHZilla had taken a 15% stake in Zippy, a lender specializing in manufactured home loans, with designs to tokenize these loans as compliant, tradable instruments. It also acquired a stake in Karus, an auto finance platform, with plans to drag these loans onto the blockchain.

“We’re building a scalable tokenization pipeline across asset classes with predictable cash flows and global investor demand,” the firm proclaimed in a Wednesday X post, with the air of a magician unveiling his next trick. The first tokenized asset offerings are expected to debut in the first quarter of the year.

And so, the circus continues, with ETHZilla at its center, juggling jet engines, tokens, and the dreams of investors. Will it soar to new heights, or crash and burn in a spectacular finale? Only time, that implacable judge, will tell.

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2026-01-24 21:06