Seoul: South Korea’s retail investors, once considered Tesla Inc’s most loyal fans, have been redeploying their investments from Tesla to cryptocurrencies, according to a report by Bloomberg.
Korean traders were known to be behind Tesla’s stock rallies, where they owned about 1.6% of the company. In August this year, these investors pulled out almost $657 million shares in the company, investing them in cryptocurrency exchanges like BitMine Immersion Technologies instead.
Bitmine holds almost $2.9 billion worth of Ethereum(ETH) tokens, making it the world’s largest holder of ETH. About $253 million of the Tesla stock has been redirected to BitMine, which has used it to increase its ETH holding by 410% to $3.6 billion.
A leading Korean exchange-traded fund TSLL, which offered a high exposure to Tesla, has also seen almost $554 million withdrawn since early 2024, according to depository data.
Bitmine’s shares peaked at $135 on July 3 after its NYSE IPO in June, before dropping to $47.37 on August 27. Despite this, Korean investors have purchased almost $96.87 million BitMine shares by the end of August, according to official data.
This realignment shows a growing confidence in cryptocurrencies. South Korean traders are known to be prolific investors, who are always ahead of the curve. This development could spark a domino effect, with other global investors moving away from blue-chip shares to cryptocurrencies, signalling a change in investment strategies.
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