Korean Retail Is Still All-In on Tom Lee’s BitMine After the Meltdown

An 80% collapse would normally mark the end 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 firm that reinvented itself as an Ether hoarding vehicle, now ranks second only to Alphabet among the most purchased overseas stocks by South Korean investors in 2025.

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Korean Retail Keeps Buying Tom Lee’s BitMine Even as the Stock Implodes

That position has held even as BitMine’s shares plunged roughly 82% from their July peak, wiping out most of the gains from its explosive rally earlier this year.

According to on-chain analyst AB Kuai Dong, despite BitMine and USDC issuer Circle both collapsing more than 70% from their highs, they still landed in the top 10 overseas securities bought by Koreans this year. BitMine sat just behind Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc.

At the center of the trade is BitMine’s radical pivot. Once a marginal Bitcoin miner, the company rebranded itself as an Ether treasury, explicitly mirroring the playbook popularized by Michael Saylor’s Strategy, only with ETH instead of BTC.

The shift briefly turned BitMine into a market phenomenon, sending its shares up more than 3,000% to a July peak. The surge came as retail traders rushed to gain equity exposure to Ethereum accumulation.

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

According to data from the Korea Securities Depository, cited by Bloomberg, South Korean retail investors invested a net $1.4 billion in BitMine shares in 2025. They even funneled $566 million into a 2x leveraged ETF linked to the stock as losses mounted.

Faith Capital, Hoarding Logic, and Korea’s Willingness to Buy the Pain

To outside observers, the behavior looks irrational. Within crypto-native circles, it follows a familiar logic. Korean community members ascribe it to the “hoarding logic,” arguing that faith-driven capital flows do not track price curves.

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The idea is that infrastructure matters more than drawdowns. If Ether is a long-term settlement layer, then an ETH-heavy treasury vehicle becomes more attractive as prices fall, not less. Social sentiment mirrors this perspective.

Circle Becomes the Parallel Bet as Korean Retail Chases Crypto Infrastructure Over Price

BitMine is not the only beneficiary of this mindset. Circle Internet Financial, the issuer of USDC, has also attracted heavy Korean inflows.

Korean investors poured close to $1 billion into Circle shares, making it one of the most popular overseas crypto-linked stocks despite sharp post-IPO volatility.

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This demand likely stems from optimism around stablecoin regulation, both in the US and under South Korea’s new administration, which is pushing to expand domestic crypto market access and allow local stablecoin issuance.

BeInCrypto reported in October that Circle registered $2.4 trillion in Asia-Pacific stablecoin activity in the June 2024-2025 financial year.

In Japan, the FSA (Financial Services Agency) approved JPYC as the first yen-denominated stablecoin for launch later this year. Circle invested in JPYC through Series A funding, raising approximately 500 million yen total.

Together, BitMine and Circle point to a broader thesis at work. Korean retail investors are not just trading tokens; they are front-running crypto infrastructure through equities, even when price action turns brutal.

More than $10 billion in overseas equity inflows from South Korea have occurred in 2025. Much of it targeted high-risk themes, including crypto, AI, and semiconductors.

Is this foresight or normalization of pain? With institutions increasingly bullish on Bitcoin and digital assets heading into 2026, Korean retail may be positioning early for the next cycle. Alternatively, 2026 may redefine drawdowns as an acceptable cost of belief.