BlockBeats news: On January 25, according to documents filed by Ethereum treasury company ETHZilla with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) this Friday, the company purchased two CFM56-7B24 aircraft engines through its newly established subsidiary, ETHZilla Aerospace LLC, for a total of $12.2 million.
The documents show that these two engines are currently leased to a major airline, and ETHZilla has hired Aero Engine Solutions to manage them on a daily basis and pays a monthly fee. The transaction includes a buy-sell option agreement: at the end of the lease period, if the engines remain in good condition, either party may request the other to buy or sell each engine for $3 million.
Behind this unconventional move lies the ongoing pressure faced by digital asset asset management companies due to the volatile downturn in the cryptocurrency market over the past few months. Many publicly traded companies that aggressively raised capital and accumulated tokens last year now have stock prices significantly lower than the net value of their on-book crypto assets, making it difficult for them to raise new funds. ETHZilla itself sold $40 million worth of ETH in October last year to fund a stock buyback program, and then reduced its holdings by another $74.5 million worth of ETH in December to repay outstanding debts. Its stock price has plummeted by about 97% from its peak in August.
However, purchasing jet engines may also be related to ETHZilla's plans to tokenize real-world assets (RWAs) on the blockchain. The company previously stated on Wednesday that it is building a scalable tokenization pipeline across asset classes, featuring predictable cash flows and global investor demand, with its first tokenized asset products expected to launch in the first quarter of this year.