Funeral company misappropriates customer funds for cryptocurrency speculation? A company bets on Bitmine leveraged ETF, losing $33 million According to BlockBeats, on May 19th, several funeral prepayment service companies in South Korea were exposed to be insolvent, with some companies even misappropriating customer funds to invest in cryptocurrency related assets. According to a survey, among 75 funeral prepayment service companies in South Korea, 32 have total assets lower than customer prepayment funds, accounting for 42.7%. Among them, the seventh ranked company in the industry, "Parents' Love (부모사랑)", once invested 59.5 billion Korean won in the Ethereum concept stock Bitmine's double leveraged ETF, but due to the sharp decline in the cryptocurrency market, its book value has shrunk to 10.2 billion Korean won by the end of last year, with a floating loss of as much as 49.3 billion Korean won (about 33 million US dollars). The report pointed out that due to South Korean law classifying the funeral prepayment industry as a "prepayment installment trading industry" rather than financial institutions, it is not strictly regulated by financial regulatory authorities on capital adequacy ratio, risk assets, or fund use, and only needs to ensure 50% of customer prepayment provisions. In addition, some companies have been exposed for lending customer funds to major shareholders or affiliated companies. South Korean industry insiders warn that the problem of "zombie funeral companies" is continuing to expand due to regulatory deficiencies, and if a large number of customers simultaneously request refunds, some companies may not be able to fulfill them. [Original link]