South Korean retail traders have reportedly ditched U.S.-listed huge tech shares like Alphabet and Tesla and have purchased $259M value of Peter Thiel-backed BitMine shares since early July. Korea Securities Depository claimed BitMine shares had been the preferred overseas inventory within the nation.
South Korean retail traders, who’re reportedly drawn to high-risk, high-reward crypto alternatives, are actually closely concentrating on ETH treasury BitMine Immersion Applied sciences shares. The U.S.-listed firm not too long ago transitioned from Bitcoin mining to an ETH treasury to build up and maintain the token. It now has over $3.6B value of ETH. Cryptopolitan not too long ago reported that BitMine was contemplating issuing shares of as much as $20B to buy extra ETH.
The BMNR rally reportedly highlights the speculative fervor that has gripped South Korean crypto retail traders. Almost a 3rd of the nation’s inhabitants (~18M) is lively in crypto markets, and they’re at present drawn to every part from leveraged crypto ETFs to stablecoins.
Japanese entrepreneur says ‘Ethereum is Korea’s
One Japanese entrepreneur who has been a crypto investor since 2021 claimed the latest BMNR rally was pushed by South Korean nationalistic sentiment. He added that the neighborhood interpreted Ethereum as being held and managed by BitMine because it grew to become the biggest ETH treasury agency.
In keeping with his understanding, South Koreans had been responding to Tom Lee’s promotion of the newest ETH wave. He stated Korean traders had been bullish on BMNR as a result of Lee, of Korean descent, was the Chairman of BitMine, the one U.S.-listed crypto-related firm with an Asian boss. Finally, combining the elements of crypto, high-volatility shares, and a Korean-descent influencer, BitMine and Lee had been now in South Korea, corresponding to the founding father of LUNA again within the day.
The entrepreneur believes the present ETH wave is “not directly being frantically pushed by Korean brothers.” He argued that traditionally, regardless of the Korean brothers hyped tended to skyrocket rapidly. The Japanese dealer cited this cycle’s excessive with XRP, saying it was now BMNR and ETH’s flip.
The Korea Securities Depository claimed that BitMine recorded the very best U.S. inventory purchases from final month to August 12. Half of the highest seven net-bought shares, excluding ETFs, had been crypto-related companies, together with Coinbase, SharpLink Gaming, and Robinhood. The Genius Act reportedly led to a surge in crypto-related inventory purchases, with ETH-based shares main the pattern.
Shin says U.S. tariffs will ‘dampen particular person abroad funding’
A Senior Researcher on the Korea Worldwide Finance Middle, Shin Sool-wi, stated the results of Trump’s tariffs on the actual economic system had been prone to dampen particular person Korean’s abroad investments “in the intervening time.” Seohak ants (Korean time period for particular person overseas inventory traders) had been dumping the seven Massive Tech shares (the Magnificent Seven) in favor of BitMine, which was related to a Korean movie star, Tom Lee. The Worldwide Finance Middle additionally believes that the surge in M7 share costs led Korean retail traders to be cautious about chasing inventory purchases.
Korea’s monetary funding trade predicts that retail investor purchases of U.S.-listed shares will decelerate. Home retail traders purchased $3.8 billion value of U.S. shares between January and April this 12 months. Nonetheless, they bought inventory value $1.29 billion in Could and $390 million in June. They once more purchased $490 million value of U.S. shares in July. Korean retail traders additionally bought off 300 billion Received and 230 billion Received value of Apple and Alphabet shares, respectively.
The Worldwide Finance Middle estimated that returns on investments within the prime 50 overseas shares held by Seohak Ants had additionally slowed. It skyrocketed to 16% in Could, up from 4% in April, earlier than declining to five% in June and later to 4.2% in July.

