(Dec 30): Ether hoarder BitMine Immersion Technologies Inc is set to close the year as one of the most popular overseas stocks in South Korea, even after a steep decline from a July peak.
The US-listed company, backed by billionaire Peter Thiel and headed by Wall Street forecaster Tom Lee, ranks second only to Alphabet Inc among the foreign securities most favoured by South Korean investors in 2025, according to Korea Securities Depository data.
South Korea’s retail investors are known for their voracious appetite for high-risk investments. In crypto, they’ve gravitated toward so-called altcoins: the long list of smaller tokens that are particularly prone to wild price swings.
This year, a proliferation of digital-asset treasury companies — listed vehicles whose purpose is to accumulate cryptocurrency — quickly caught the eye of South Korean traders.
BitMine’s shares surged more than 3,000% to a July 3 peak after the company announced a pivot from bitcoin mining to stockpiling ether, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market value. The stock was barely on investors’ radar before the shift, but it quickly became the most bought overseas equity in South Korea in July.
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Since then, BitMine shares have slumped about 82%. Yet South Korea’s army of ants, as its retail investors are known, appear undeterred: as of Dec 29, they had poured a net US$1.4 billion into BitMine in 2025, the Korea Securities Depository data show.
They also sought even riskier forms of exposure to the stock, funnelling US$566 million into T-Rex’s 2X Long BitMine Daily Target ETF, which launched after the ether treasury firm’s summer surge and aims to deliver twice its daily performance. That fund is down roughly 86% from its September peak.
BitMine currently holds about US$12 billion worth of ether, making it the largest DAT dedicated to the token, according to data compiled by strategicethreserve.xyz.
See also: Bitcoin misses out on Wall Street cheer to stall near US$87,000
Ether itself is down about 11% in 2025. The momentum generated by listed accumulators of the token pushed it to a record of nearly US$5,000 in August, but that has all but petered out since.
Ether was trading at US$2,945 on Tuesday (Dec 30) morning in London.
Uploaded by Arion Yeow
