South Korean funeral company Bumo Sarang feels they’re left facing a grim scenario after they reportedly incurred unrealized losses of $32.7 million after investing in crypto ETFs.
The company’s 2025 audit report published Tuesday shows that Bumo Sarang had invested in the T-REX 2X Long BMNR Daily Target ETF (BMNU), which doubles the daily returns of Ether (ETH) treasury company Bitmine. However, the $40 million investment has resulted in an inherent loss.
Interestingly, Bumo Sarang isn’t the only funeral company that has incurred crypto losses. Peer Christian Funeral Family of Faith recorded a $331,700 net loss last year, according to Korea Economic Daily.
The firm is simply dealing with a “short-term unrealised loss due to global market volatility,” which is still “sufficiently controllable within the company’s financial buffer,” a Bumo Sarang representative told the local source.
The firm’s losses come at a time when a majority of South Korea’s investment has made its way to Ethereum treasury companies last year. Media reports highlight that nearly $6 billion of Korean retail capital has propped up the Ethereum treasury companies so far.
Bumo Sarang’s ETF losses raises fresh concerns
The findings of the losses have sparked renewed scrutiny of South Korea’s funeral mutual aid industry, which handles large volumes of customer advance payments but is regulated by the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) instead of financial regulators.
Unlike banks or insurance companies, these firms are not required to follow strict capital adequacy or liquidity rules, even though they effectively manage pooled customer money meant to cover future funeral services.
According to a report by Korea Economic Daily, around 43 percent of local funeral service providers are reportedly holding fewer assets than the total advance payments they have collected from customers.
The mismatch has raised concerns about whether some companies would actually be able to repay customers or deliver services if there were mass cancellations, financial stress, or sudden disruptions.
The situation has now triggered a wider debate about regulatory gaps, with growing calls to bring the sector under stricter financial-style oversight given that these businesses operate in a way that is very similar to deposit-taking institutions, but without the same safeguards or protections.
Ethereum ETFs face volatile trajectory
Ethereum spot ETFs are currently going through a tough trading phase, closely tracking the broader decline in Ethereum’s price, which has dropped by around 29 percent and is now hovering near the $2,200 level.
This weakness in the underlying asset has naturally weighed on ETF performance as well, pushing overall returns into negative territory in recent months.
On the other hand, the institutional interest is not yet dead. There have been instances where the inflow was relatively high, and some funds even recorded their highest level within several weeks as part of the long-awaited Pectra upgrade in May when the market sentiment had improved.
However, from a wider perspective of the last year, it can be observed that the performance of the Ethereum ETFs has been rather unstable. After a poor beginning, the ETFs witnessed a very strong wave of institutional investment in mid-2025, as more and more institutions invested in ETH. But later on, that did not continue, and money started flowing out as more uncertainties and risks became dominant in global financial markets.
Despite occasional spikes in inflows, the overall trend has recently been pressured by weaker market conditions.
