S. Korean funeral firm books $33M loss on BitMine ETF

Bumo Sarang, South Korea’s seventh-largest funeral service provider, reported an unrealized loss of about 49.3 billion won (roughly $33 million) in its 2025 audit filed with the Fair Trade Commission. The company invested roughly 59.5 billion won (near $40 million) of customer prepaid funeral funds in a U.S.-listed leveraged ETF tied to BitMine.

The holding is the T‑REX 2X Long BMNR Daily Target ETF, a REX Shares product that aims to deliver twice the daily return of BMNR, the fund linked to BitMine Immersion Technologies. By the end of 2025 the ETF’s book value had fallen to 10.2 billion won (about $6.8 million), producing the reported unrealized deficit of 49.3 billion won.

BitMine operates as an Ethereum treasury and holds millions of ether, so the BMNR-linked ETF moves with ether prices. Leveraged ETFs rebalance daily and are designed to produce a multiple of a single day’s return; in choppy markets they can lose value over time because of volatility-related decay.

Under current rules, prepaid funeral firms are regulated by the Fair Trade Commission as prepaid installment businesses rather than by a financial regulator. Companies must keep at least half of customer prepayments in reserve; the other half may be used for other purposes, including investments. A review of 75 providers found 43% held fewer assets than the prepayments they owed customers.

Six bills pending in the National Assembly would ban speculative investments and related-party lending by firms that manage prepaid funeral funds. Lawmakers and consumer groups have pressed for tighter rules after the disclosure.

The company’s audit filing described the decline as a temporary market movement and noted it can absorb the loss from its financial buffer. The firm has not announced any plan to sell or unwind the ETF position. Analyst Bull Theory criticized the practice and called it illegal.

Customer prepaid funds invested by Bumo Sarang remain exposed to the future performance of BitMine and ether unless the company reduces or exits the position. The disclosure has prompted renewed scrutiny of how firms manage prepaid consumer payments.