South Korean traders funnel net $1.4B into Peter Thiel-backed BitMine despite 82% plunge YTD

BitMine, the U.S.-listed Ether hoarder backed by Peter Thiel and run by former Wall Street strategist Tom Lee, has become South Korea’s second most bought overseas stock in 2025.

That’s despite the fact that its BNMR stock collapsed by 82% since early July.

According to the Financial Times, South Korean retail traders poured a net $1.4 billion into BitMine this year alone, ranking it just below Google’s Alphabet in foreign investor preference.

The obsession began when BitMine switched from mining Bitcoin to hoarding Ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap. The announcement pushed the stock up more than 3,000% by July 3. The company had barely registered on Korean radars before that.

But once it rebranded itself as an Ether accumulator, retail buyers went all in. By the end of July, it was the most purchased foreign equity in the country.

Retail investors double down on BitMine against all odds

After peaking in July, BitMine shares crashed abruptly the very next month. But South Korean retail investors, known locally as “ants,” kept buying.

As of December 29, they had invested a total of $1.4 billion in BitMine just this year alone, though they also funneled $566 million into T-Rex’s 2X Long BitMine Daily Target ETF, a product designed to mirror BitMine’s daily performance at double the speed.

That fund launched shortly after BitMine’s summer run and has since lost about 86% from its September peak. Even with that drop, the cash kept flowing. The appetite for volatility among South Korean traders appears nowhere near cooling down.

BitMine holds $12B in Ether as token stalls

BitMine now holds around $12 billion worth of Ether, making it the largest listed entity focused on accumulating the token. This has positioned it as the top Ether treasury company, based on numbers from strategicethreserve.xyz.

The stock’s earlier rise helped fuel a temporary rally in Ether itself, which touched a new high of almost $5,000 in August. But since then, the momentum has dried up.

The price of Ether is down roughly 11% for the year. Despite the drop, BitMine has held its crypto stockpile strategy. Investors betting on a rebound have stuck with it, and South Korea’s traders haven’t blinked.

Even as other assets turned south, they stayed locked on BitMine, showing the same high-risk appetite that’s made them notorious in global financial circles.

South Korea’s investing culture remains extremely crypto-forward, especially among young traders, so altcoins, leverage, and fast gains have always pulled in attention.