South Korea Funeral Firm Reports 49.3 Billion Won Crypto Paper Loss

A major South Korean funeral service company has reported a substantial financial loss after investing tens of millions of dollars of customer prepayments into a high-risk, leveraged cryptocurrency fund. Bumo Sarang, the country’s seventh-largest funeral mutual aid provider, disclosed an unrealized loss of 49.3 billion won, approximately $33 million, in its 2025 audit report filed with regulators.

The company had invested 59.5 billion won, roughly $40 million, into the TREX 2X Long BMNR Daily Target ETF. This U.S.-listed product aims to deliver twice the daily return of BitMine Immersion Technologies, a publicly traded company that functions as a large corporate treasury for Ethereum. By the end of 2025, the book value of that investment had fallen to 10.2 billion won, or about $6.8 million, creating the paper loss.

A company representative described the loss as a short-term, unrealized result of global market volatility and stated it remained controllable within the firm’s financial buffer. The investment highlights the amplified risks of leveraged exchange-traded funds, which reset exposure daily. This structure can lead to significant erosion of value, known as volatility...