Abstract. We discuss three important classes of three-qubit entangled states and their encoding into quantum gates, finite groups and Lie algebras. States of the GHZ and W-type correspond to pure tripartite and bipartite entanglement, respectively. We introduce another generic class B of three-qubit states, that have balanced entanglement over two and three parties. We show how to realize the largest cristallographic group W (E 8 ) in terms of three-qubit gates (with real entries) encoding states of type GHZ or W [M. Planat, Clifford group dipoles and the enactment of Weyl/Coxeter group W (E 8 ) by entangling gates, Preprint 0904.3691 (quant-ph)]. Then, we describe a peculiar "condensation" of W (E 8 ) into the four-letter alternating group A 4 , obtained from a chain of maximal subgroups. Group A 4 is realized from two B-type generators and found to correspond to the Lie algebra sl(3, C) ⊕ u(1). Possible applications of our findings to particle physics and the structure of genetic code are also mentioned.