Funeral Services Firm in South Korea Faces $33M Paper Loss from Leveraged Ethereum ETFs
A major South Korean mutual aid funeral services provider is facing unrealized losses totaling $33 million from its leveraged Ether ETF holdings amid the recent cryptocurrency market decline.
Bumo Sarang, a funeral services provider based in South Korea, is currently facing approximately 49.3 billion won ($32.7 million) in paper losses following its decision to allocate around $40 million from customer funds into leveraged cryptocurrency exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
The company's 2025 audit report reveals that Bumo Sarang placed its investment in the T-REX 2X Long BMNR Daily Target ETF (BMNU), an instrument that provides twice the daily performance of Bitmine, an Ether (ETH) treasury company.
Meanwhile, Christian Funeral Family of Faith, another funeral services provider, reported a net loss of $331,700 for the previous year, as documented by Korea Economic Daily.
These revelations have intensified examination of South Korea's funeral mutual aid sector, which operates under the oversight of the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) rather than traditional financial regulatory bodies, despite being responsible for substantial amounts of prepaid customer funds.
According to reporting by Korea Economic Daily, approximately 43% of domestic funeral service companies maintained asset levels below the total of customer prepayments, sparking worries about the ability of certain providers to reimburse customers should widespread cancellations occur.
In a statement to the local media outlet, a representative from Bumo Sarang indicated that the firm is merely experiencing a "short-term unrealized loss due to global market volatility," and emphasized that the situation remains "sufficiently controllable within the company's financial buffer."
Despite attempts by Cointelegraph to obtain comments from both Bumo Sarang and Family of Faith, neither organization provided a response prior to the time of publication.
South Korean capital piled into Ether-linked stocks in 2025
Significant portions of South Korean retail investment capital shifted away from technology stocks and moved toward Ethereum treasury companies throughout last year.
"There's around $6 billion of Korean retail capital propping up the Ethereum treasury companies," wrote Samson Mow, the CEO of Bitcoin tech company JAN3, in an Oct. 6 X post. He added that some of those retail buyers didn't understand the risks of investing in Ether.
The price of Ether has declined more than 28% year to date in 2026 and stood above $2,118 at the time of publication. During this same timeframe, Bitmine's stock price experienced a decline of nearly 40%, dropping to $18.7, according to data from TradingView.
Tom Lee, the chairman of Bitmine, characterized Ether's decline beneath the $2,200 level as an "attractive opportunity" following the treasury company's acquisition of an additional 71,672 Ether, as reported by Cointelegraph earlier on Tuesday.