The unwinding of that enthusiasm in 2026 has produced losses that extend beyond individual retail portfolios into institutional and even quasi-public contexts. A funeral company using customer prepaid funds to invest in a 2x leveraged ETH product represents an extreme version of that risk-seeking behavior, but it sits within a wider pattern of South Korean capital reaching for yield and growth through ETH-linked vehicles without fully pricing in the downside scenarios. Bitmine chairman Tom Lee's description of Ether's drop below $2,200 as an attractive buying opportunity reflects one perspective on the current situation, and Bitmine itself has continued accumulating ETH aggressively through the drawdown. Whether that conviction proves well-founded will determine not just the trajectory of dedicated ETH treasury companies but the financial health of the South Korean investors and institutions that bet on them during the cycle's peak.