“ETHZilla is betting on bringing real-world assets on blockchain rails after it sold at least $114.5 million of its ETH stash over the past months.”, — write: www.coindesk.com
A Friday filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) shows that the company bought two CFM56-7B24 aircraft engines for $12.2 million through a newly formed subsidiary, ETHZilla Aerospace LLC.
The engines are currently leased to a major airline, and ETHZilla hired Aero Engine Solutions to manage them in exchange for a monthly fee, according to the document. The deal includes a buy-sell option agreement where either party can require the other to buy or sell the engines for $3 million each upon lease expiration, provided the engines remain in proper condition.
While the move may sound odd, for an ETH treasury company, buying jet engines and leasing them to aircraft operators is part of the normal aerospace business outside the crypto world.
Airline operators lease jet engines as spares to ensure the planes can continue to operate without disruption if their primary engine fails. Companies such as AerCap, Willis Lease Finance Corporation, and SMBC Aero Engine Lease operate in this space.
The aerospace business is also currently facing a big-engine supply squeeze, with IATA saying its airline members would be forced to pay about $2.6 billion to lease additional spare engines in 2025. In fact, the global aircraft engine leasing market is expected to grow from $11.17 billion in 2025 to $15.56 billion by 2031 at a 5.68% CAGR, according to TechSci Research.
Tokenization pivotThe strange maneuver comes as digital asset treasuries face growing pressure amid crypto markets’ tumble over the past months.
Many public firms that aggressively raised funds to accumulate tokens last year now trade well below the net asset value (NAV) of the crypto on their books, leaving little room to raise fresh capital.
ETHZilla itself previously sold $40 million in ETH in October to fund a stock buyback program, then offloaded another $74.5 million in December to redeem outstanding debt. Meanwhile, its stock has tumbled roughly 97% since its August peak.
Still, buying aircraft engines might be part of ETHZilla’s broader ambition to bring tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) onchain.
In a December shareholder letter, the company outlined plans to tokenize assets in partnership with Liquidity.io, a regulated broker-dealer and SEC-registered alternative trading system (ATS). Before that, ETHZilla took a 15% stake in Zippy, a lender focused on manufactured home loans, with plans to tokenize those loans as compliant, tradable instruments. It also acquired a stake in the auto finance platform Karus with plans to bring loans on-chain.
“We’re building a scalable tokenization pipeline across asset classes with predictable cash flows and global investor demand,” the firm said in a Wednesday X post. The company expects to list the first tokenized asset offerings in the first quarter of the year.
KuCoin captured a record share of centralized exchange volume in 2025, with more than $1.25tn traded as its volumes grew faster than the broader crypto market.
- KuCoin recorded over $1.25 trillion in total trading volume in 2025equivalent to an average of roughly $114 billion per monthmarking its strongest year on record.
- This performance translated into an all-time high share of centralized exchange volumeas KuCoin’s activity expanded faster than aggregate CEX volumeswhich slowed during periods of lower market volatility.
- Spot and derivatives volumes were evenly spliteach exceeding $500 billion for the year, signaling broad-based usage rather than reliance on a single product line.
- Altcoins accounted for the majority of trading activityreinforcing KuCoin’s role as a primary liquidity venue beyond BTC and ETH at a time when majors saw more muted turnover.
- Even as overall crypto volumes softened mid-year, KuCoin maintained elevated baseline activityindicating structurally higher user engagement rather than short-lived volume spikes.
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Brian Armstrong returns from the World Economic Forum with a message: traditional finance is taking crypto seriously
- Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said a top executive at one of the world’s 10 largest banks told him crypto is now the bank’s “number one priority” and an “existential” issue.
- At Davos, Armstrong highlighted tokenization of assets and stablecoins as major themes, arguing that they could broaden access to investments for billions while threatening to bypass traditional banks.
- He described the Trump administration as the most crypto-forward government globally, backing efforts like the CLARITY Act, and predicted that AI agents will increasingly use stablecoins for payments outside conventional banking rails.
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