Samson Mow just lit up the crypto discourse with an unfiltered reality check for Ethereum treasury companies.
According to Mow, they’re being “propped up” by South Korean retail money seeking the next Michael Saylor play.
In the latest Ethereum news, Mow points to a staggering $6 billion of Korean retail capital holding up the ETH treasury sector.
It’s a trend that’s turning heads from Main Street to Wall Street, but few seem to notice just how much narrative engineering, influencer jet‑setting, and blind faith are fueling this market. Mow’s warning? “This won’t end well.”
Ethereum News: The Korean ETH Treasury Phenomenon
Crypto isn’t new to South Korea: roughly a third of the entire population actively trades digital assets, according to the Korea Securities Depository.
But the past few months have shown a dramatic shift, as retail traders sell off blue‑chip US tech stocks like Tesla, Alphabet, and Apple, swapping out for Ethereum treasury companies.
In August alone, Korean retail dumped $721 million of Tesla and shifted $269 million into BitMine, currently the world’s largest Ethereum treasury company with $3.6 billion in Ether.
The playbook is familiar: ETH influencers fly to Seoul, stage high‑profile marketing events, and pump narratives that mirror the institutional BTC pivots (think MicroStrategy, think Saylor).
Balance sheets loaded with the digital native asset powering a decentralized future.
But in the Ethereum news, Mow cautions, and most local retail investors don’t even glance at the ETH price chart against BTC. They think they’re buying the next immutable treasury juggernaut.
For anyone watching the ETH price long‑term performance against Bitcoin, the signals are mixed at best.
Ethereum is still trading within a multi‑year range against BTC, with a clear downtrend visible since mid‑2022 and only brief bounces at long‑term support.
The Korean retail narrative seems blissfully unaware. The conviction: buying into Ethereum treasury companies means exposure to a store of value and a rally reminiscent of the BTC corporate adoption era.
Andrew Kang vs Tom Lee: Ethereum Treasury Companies Get Torched
Mow isn’t alone in his skepticism. Andrew Kang, Mechanism Capital co‑founder, torpedoed Tom Lee’s latest ETH thesis, calling it, “one of the most retarded combinations of financially illiterate arguments I’ve seen from a well‑known analyst.”
This has also made headlines in the Ethereum news column. Notably, Kang’s dismantling of the bullish ETH narrative is surgical.
The idea that stablecoin and RWA adoption will drive ETH fees, he says, is a fundamental misunderstanding.
Tokenized asset and stablecoin volumes have exploded since 2020, but fees are practically unchanged, largely due to technical upgrades and liquidity shifting to other chains like Solana and Arbitrum.
The “digital oil” comparison? Also off base. Oil prices, adjusted for inflation, run in a tight range; thinking of Ethereum as a commodity is not an inherently bullish framing.
He also points out that banks and institutions haven’t exactly rushed to buy ETH for staking or security purposes, contrary to what the bullish thesis suggests.
The leap that ETH price will be “equal to the value of all financial infrastructure companies” prompts Kang to call out a fundamental misunderstanding about how crypto and value accrual work.
Kang’s conclusion:
The Risks Beneath the Surface
What’s fueling the Korean Ethereum treasury companies? It’s not technical analysis, it’s not a sober view of long‑term ETH price against BTC, according to Kang and Mow; it’s just FOMO.
The concentration of capital, like the $6 billion sourced from retail chasing the next Saylor moment, has created a narrative bubble around the ETH price.
Meanwhile, alternative blockchains and Layer 2s are snapping up the real transaction volume. Centralized treasury companies are accumulating exposure just as ETH’s fundamentals look stagnant.
Mow’s blunt warning echoes what seasoned analysts say: when retail piles into complex strategies without understanding the ecosystem, the unwinding is not pretty.
A few months from now, those ignoring the ETH/BTC chart may wish they hadn’t switched from blue‑chip tech giants.