Shaw Walters has declared the Eliza Labs-linked token effectively finished, saying the project’s foundation is winding down after its remaining treasury was used to settle a class action lawsuit brought by Burwick Law. In a post on X, Walters said he would not support or launch another token connected to Eliza, ending any expectation of further buybacks, supply-management measures, or foundation-backed market activity.
The announcement draws a hard line between Eliza’s cryptocurrency experiment and the AI software work that grew around it. Walters said he retains the project’s intellectual property and plans to “start over,” while the open-source Eliza AI agent framework will continue without a token treasury attached to it.
According to Walters, the settlement required the project to transfer its remaining available funds to a group of token holders. He described the linked digital asset as “dead” and said the foundation would provide no additional support.
Settlement follows federal lawsuit over token marketing
Burwick Law filed its federal class action lawsuit in April in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The complaint named Walters, Eliza Labs, and other affiliates as defendants, alleging false advertising, deceptive acts and practices, negligent misrepresentation, and unjust enrichment.
The lawsuit focused on claims surrounding the project’s original ai16z token and its later transition toward Eliza OS branding. Burwick Law alleged that the project had been promoted as an autonomous, AI-managed venture fund governed by an independent agent, while control allegedly remained with Walters and other insiders.
The complaint also alleged that token holders were diluted during the migration from ai16z, traded under the ticker AI16Z, to Eliza OS. That migration followed objections from venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, commonly known as a16z, over the project’s original name.
Walters’s latest statement indicates that the legal resolution has exhausted the financial structure behind the token. His pledge not to create another Eliza-linked asset also reduces the likelihood that holders will be offered a replacement token, a revived foundation program, or a new mechanism intended to support the existing supply.
AI framework continues without token economics
Eliza began on Solana in October 2024 under the ai16z name. The project presented itself as an effort to build an AI-managed decentralized autonomous organization, or DAO, alongside a venture-style fund model. Its token rapidly became associated with the growing market interest in AI agent projects, which sought to combine automated software agents with on-chain governance and token-based incentives.
The project rebranded as ElizaOS in January 2025 and continued developing the Eliza open-source framework. The software is designed to help developers build, deploy, and manage AI agents, which are programs able to carry out tasks with varying degrees of autonomy.
Walters’s post separates that software effort from the token structure that once financed and represented the project in crypto markets. The distinction gives the codebase a path to continue under an intellectual-property and open-source development model, while removing the foundation’s role in managing a token treasury or intervening in the market.
That split is particularly consequential for holders because a project token can retain speculative attention even after a rebrand if the development team maintains a treasury, runs buybacks, creates supply policies, or ties future product activity to token utility. Walters said none of those measures will continue for the Eliza-linked asset.
From multibillion-dollar valuation to a depleted foundation
The materials provided place the token’s peak market capitalization at roughly $2.6 billion before its collapse. They put the current price near $0.00035 and the market capitalization at about $3.85 million, representing a decline of approximately 99% from its high.
Those figures illustrate how little financial capacity remains around the token compared with its earlier trading period. A market capitalization in the low millions can leave a token vulnerable to sharp moves when liquidity is thin, particularly after the project team has said it will no longer use treasury funds for buybacks or other supply-related actions.
The collapse also exposes the risks in tying a token’s perceived value closely to a fast-moving software narrative. Eliza’s AI framework may remain available for developers, but continued work on open-source code does not automatically create economic support for a separate digital asset. The legal settlement and Walters’s statement make that divide explicit.
For token holders, the settlement appears to close the foundation chapter rather than launch a recovery plan. Funds that remained were directed toward settling claims with a group of holders, according to Walters, while the project’s future software work is set to proceed without crypto treasury financing.
The result is a narrower Eliza operation: an AI-agent codebase continuing under Walters’s control, and a token whose original foundation has publicly withdrawn support.
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