Will ETHZilla’s $40M sell-off prove ‘bad’ for Ethereum’s rally?

ambcryptoPublished on 2025-10-27Last updated on 2025-10-28

Key Takeaways 

Why is ETHZilla dumping its ETH holdings? 

To boost its mNAV and reduce share dilution, according to the CEO.

Will it affect Ethereum’s value?

Yes, if other DATs with mNAV trading at a discount follow the same strategy.

The seventh-largest Ethereum [ETH] DAT (digital asset treasury) firm, ETHZilla Corporation (ETHZ), announced that it sold $40 million worth of ETH to fund share buybacks. 

McAndrew Rudisill, CEO of ETHZilla, said the move would help reduce share dilution and shore up mNAV. 

“By opportunistically repurchasing shares while our stock is trading below NAV, we plan to reduce the number of shares that are available for stock loan/borrow activity, while increasing the NAV per share of the Company.” 

Ethereum

Source: X

The firm added that it has a $250 million share buyback program that will be funded by selling its ETH holdings.

Following the update, ETHZ, rallied 14.5% after the update and closed on the 27th of October at $20.65. After market hours, it rose by another 14% to $ 23.50. 

Is the DAT sell-off bad for ETH?

However, the selling of the underlying ETH to fund share buybacks could be a risk to the altcoin. The trend would be “bad for coin,” claimed Charles Edwards, Founder of crypto VC Capriole Investments.

Ethereum

Source:X

He noted that DATs trading below mNAV typically have two other options — securing buyouts from peers or increasing debt.

The mNAV or Market-to-Net-Asset-Value ratio allows DATs to raise capital and buy more ETH if it trades at a premium. 

But if the mNAV is at a discount, like most DATs are at the moment (including ETHZilla), it would hamper funding and extra ETH bids.  

Ethereum

Source: Blockworks

At press time, Bit Digital [BTBT] had an mNAV of 2. Bitmine [BMNR] and GameSquare (GAME) had a reading of 1, while the rest were below 1. 

In other words, if most of the ETH DATs were to go to the ETHZilla way in the short term, the sell pressure would cap ETH’s price action. 

The DATs control 5% of the ETH supply (about 6 million ETH) while ETFs hold 5.6%. Unless ETFs absorb the sell-off, a wide DAT distress could drag the market. 

ETH price stalls at $4.2k

That said, after recovering about 12% from $3.7k last week, bulls were rebuffed at $4.2k.

The $4.2k has become a short-term supply zone and must be cleared for a meaningful advance to $4.8k or else the $3.8k support could be retested. 

Ethereum

Source: ETH/USDT, TradingView 

Next:
Share

Related Reads

Trump's 43 Minutes: The Strongman Narrative Unravels, the Media War Escalates

President Donald Trump's first public appearance in over a week, intended to project control amidst health concerns and political challenges, devolved into a 43-minute display of grievance and insecurity. He focused initially on a reflecting pool renovation, compared his rally size to Martin Luther King Jr.'s, and repeatedly attacked political opponents, judges, and U.S. cities. He signed executive orders, including one weakening job protections for senior federal employees, potentially replacing expertise with loyalty. His speech meandered to topics like communism before ending abruptly. The article highlights Trump's agitated, defensive state and the systemic pressures enabling his power. It details his personal attack on a CNN reporter, framing it as part of a broader assault on independent media to undermine public trust in unfavorable facts. This pressure is exemplified by the reported erosion of editorial independence at CBS. The author argues that as mainstream media faces political and commercial pressures, supporting independent journalists becomes crucial for preserving truthful information. The piece concludes by noting a symbolic House vote challenging Trump's Iran actions, suggesting growing Republican dissent, and frames financial support for independent media as a direct form of resistance.

marsbit2h ago

Trump's 43 Minutes: The Strongman Narrative Unravels, the Media War Escalates

marsbit2h ago

The Ambitions of Kalshi, MTS, and a16z

"Kalshi, MTS, and a16z's Ambition" explores prediction markets as a focal point for investors in 2025. The article traces their intellectual evolution from Hayek's ideas on distributed knowledge to Robin Hanson's logarithmic market scoring rule (LMSR), which incentivizes truth-telling. Venture firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) invested in prediction market platform Kalshi, valuing it at $220 billion. a16z argues these markets offer "presence"—a way for individuals to actively engage with and influence world events through financial bets, countering modern detachment. This transforms participants into "super observers" and grants the platform authority in defining event truth and importance. The piece positions prediction markets as a key component of a16z's envisioned "new media" empire. This strategy involves rapid, high-intensity content across platforms to "take over the timeline." Media company MTS exemplifies this with its constant news livestreams. Ultimately, Kalshi's value lies in its "reality distortion field"—the power to shape perception through the credibility of real-money markets, making it a potent tool within a16z's broader media and influence architecture.

marsbit4h ago

The Ambitions of Kalshi, MTS, and a16z

marsbit4h ago

Breaking: OpenAI Chip Veteran Joins Anthropic

Breaking News: OpenAI Chip Veteran Joins Anthropic Clive Chan, a key early member of OpenAI's in-house chip development team, has announced his departure from OpenAI to join rival AI company Anthropic. In his statement, Chan highlighted his experience as the second hire on OpenAI's hardware team, praising its exceptional talent density but expressing a desire to "climb a new mountain from the base." He cited Anthropic's talent, values, and ambitious pace as key reasons for his move. Chan also referenced OpenAI's disclosed partnership with Broadcom, aimed at deploying a 10GW AI accelerator system starting in the second half of 2026. His career includes roles at Tesla, Google, and SpaceX, focusing on AI infrastructure and hardware. This move continues a notable trend of talent flow from OpenAI to Anthropic, following other high-profile departures like researcher Andrej Karpathy. With Anthropic's recent $65 billion funding round valuing it near $1 trillion, the competition for top AI talent between these leading firms remains intense.

marsbit4h ago

Breaking: OpenAI Chip Veteran Joins Anthropic

marsbit4h ago

a16z's Globalization Shift: Venture Capital Is Becoming the 'Driving Force' for the U.S. Tech Alliance

a16z is making a significant shift in its globalization strategy, positioning itself not just as a global investor but as a key player in aligning technology with the national security and competitive interests of the United States and its allies. The firm’s recent initiatives, including opening a Tokyo office and appointing Anne Neuberger—a former U.S. government official with deep experience in defense and technology—as Global Affairs Lead, underscore this move. It highlights how venture capital’s role is expanding beyond funding and advice to helping startups navigate complex international regulations, geopolitics, and strategic partnerships in critical sectors like AI, cybersecurity, defense tech, and supply chain resilience. By rebranding its investor relations team as the Global Partnership Team and leveraging its extensive network to connect founders with global capital and key stakeholders, a16z aims to be a "behind-the-scenes force" for scaling companies internationally. The firm has already made over 100 international investments. Ultimately, a16z frames its mission as twofold: empowering founders to build great companies and, now, actively supporting the technological leadership and alliance networks of the U.S. and its allies in an era of heightened global competition.

marsbit4h ago

a16z's Globalization Shift: Venture Capital Is Becoming the 'Driving Force' for the U.S. Tech Alliance

marsbit4h ago

Uncovering the Truth About Agent Commerce, Payments, and Infrastructure

Decoding Agent Commerce, Payments, and Infrastructure: The Reality Over the past year, I've been building infrastructure for the Agent economy, engaging with major players like Stripe, Visa, Coinbase, Google, and dozens of startups. A clear conclusion emerges: true, large-scale demand does not yet exist. Startups face structural challenges. Data points illustrate this gap. Stripe's Agent commerce platform has over 1,000 merchants but only single-digit transacting agents. Visa's Agent payment token requires 9-month KYC and a $250M revenue threshold, accessible only to giants like Amazon. On-chain analysis reveals actual daily Agent transaction volume is around $17k, half of which are test transactions. The article analyzes four potential markets: **1. Agent-to-Merchant (A2M):** Current AI shopping UX is often inferior to traditional e-commerce for visual, comparison-heavy purchases (clothing, electronics). Chat interfaces are a step back. Real merchant interest is defensive "Agent Engine Optimization," fearing future obsolescence, not current demand. Potential exists in high-frequency, low-decision purchases (e.g., food delivery) or simplifying terrible UX (complex checkouts, non-native shoppers), but these require massive consumer distribution channels dominated by giants like DoorDash and Amazon. **2. Agent-to-API (A2A):** Developers already have subscriptions and billing for core APIs (compute, data). The argument for micro-payments via crypto for sub-dollar API calls is addressed by pre-paid balances today. The deeper issue is supplier resistance; major SaaS firms rely on enterprise contracts, not fractional cent pricing. Opportunity lies in the long tail of niche services, but this is a smaller market catering to developers, a historically low-paying group. **3. Agent-to-Agent (A2A):** This remains a theoretical long-term vision with near-zero current transaction volume. It involves unique challenges: discovery, trust, negotiation, dispute resolution. When it materializes, it will require a fundamentally new settlement infrastructure for high-speed, variable-value, multi-party transactions. It's a real long-term bet, but not the current market. **4. Agent-to-Finance (A2F):** This is the only category with existing, paying demand. Integrating AI into financial workflows (trading, portfolio management) is a natural evolution and enables new capabilities like autonomous rebalancing. However, competition favors incumbents with regulatory licenses, compliance infrastructure, and existing client relationships. **The Real Issue:** Why is infrastructure still being built? Incumbents can afford long-term bets, and payment companies see every problem as a nail for their payment hammer. However, payment is just one piece. The core challenge is *coordination*—orchestrating work between Agents and humans, verifying outcomes, and settling results. Payment is part of settlement, which is part of coordination. Companies that solve the coordination problem will subsume payments, not the other way around. Startups lack the infinite runway of giants and must find today's real market, which, after a year of exploration, lies outside these four categories—in an area with real, growing, and underserved activity.

marsbit4h ago

Uncovering the Truth About Agent Commerce, Payments, and Infrastructure

marsbit4h ago

Trading

Spot
Futures

Hot Articles

Discussions

Welcome to the HTX Community. Here, you can stay informed about the latest platform developments and gain access to professional market insights. Users' opinions on the price of S (S) are presented below.

活动图片

Top Questions

Hot Categoriesright-arrow

Hot Tagsright-arrow