An 80% Wipeout Hasn’t Stopped Korean Retail From Chasing Tom Lee’s BitMine

An 80% illness would usually people the extremity of a speculative trade. In South Korea’s retail-driven crypto ecosystem, it has done the opposite.

BitMine Immersion Technologies, the Tom Lee–backed US-listed steadfast that reinvented itself arsenic an Ether hoarding vehicle, present ranks 2nd lone to Alphabet among the astir purchased overseas stocks by South Korean investors successful 2025.

That presumption has held adjacent arsenic BitMine’s shares plunged astir 82% from their July peak, wiping retired astir of the gains from its explosive rally earlier this year.

According to on-chain expert AB Kuai Dong, contempt BitMine and USDC issuer Circle some collapsing much than 70% from their highs, they inactive landed successful the apical 10 overseas securities bought by Koreans this year. BitMine sat conscionable down Google’s genitor company, Alphabet Inc.

“Korean bros are putting connected a amusement of buying much the much they lose,” helium wrote.

At the halfway of the commercialized is BitMine’s extremist pivot. Once a marginal Bitcoin miner, the institution rebranded itself arsenic an Ether treasury, explicitly mirroring the playbook popularized by Michael Saylor’s Strategy, lone with ETH alternatively of BTC.

The displacement concisely turned BitMine into a marketplace phenomenon, sending its shares up much than 3,000% to a July peak. The surge came arsenic retail traders rushed to summation equity vulnerability to Ethereum accumulation.

The hangover was swift. BitMine’s banal collapsed, volatility spiked, and leveraged products tied to the shares cratered. Yet Korean traders kept buying.

According to information from the Korea Securities Depository, cited by Bloomberg, South Korean retail investors invested a nett $1.4 cardinal successful BitMine shares successful 2025. They adjacent funneled $566 cardinal into a 2x leveraged ETF linked to the banal arsenic losses mounted.

To extracurricular observers, the behaviour looks irrational. Within crypto-native circles, it follows a acquainted logic. Korean assemblage members ascribe it to the “hoarding logic,” arguing that faith-driven superior flows bash not way terms curves.

“Faith superior travel ≠ terms curve, this question successful Korea is conscionable similar the on-chain hoarding logic,” they said.