ETHZilla’s $250 million buyback highlights how companies are tapping crypto gains for liquidity — but analysts warn that leverage risks could turn treasuries into ticking time bombs. Ether treasury company ETHZilla, which recently pivoted from its biotechnology roots to cryptocurrency, has approved a $250 million share repurchase program — signaling that some firms may increasingly tap digital-asset gains as a source of liquidity. ETHZilla’s board of directors authorized the buyback of up to $250 million worth of its outstanding common shares, the company disclosed Monday. The company currently has 165.4 million shares outstanding. The move comes less than a month after the firm rebranded from 180 Life Sciences and made Ether (ETH) its core strategy — a pivot that helped revive its beaten-down stock. Read more
Citi’s Ronit Ghose warned that paying interest on stablecoin holdings could trigger bank outflows akin to the 1980s, driving up funding costs and credit prices. Paying interest on stablecoin deposits could spark a wave of bank outflows similar to the money market fund boom of the 1980s, Citi’s Future of Finance head Ronit Ghose warned in a report published Monday. According to the Financial Times, Ghose compared the potential outflows caused by paying interest on stablecoins to the rise of money market funds in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Those funds ballooned from about $4 billion in 1975 to $235 billion in 1982, outpacing banks whose deposit rates were tightly regulated, Federal Reserve data showed. Withdrawals from bank accounts exceeded new deposits by $32 billion between 1981 and 1982. Read more