South Korean fitness influencer Chongchong, addicted to high-risk stock investments, bankrupts his entire 700 million won (HK$3.57 million) life savings after a single speculative stock.
Chongchong, with 201,000 subscribers on YouTube, said on the channel "총총TV Silver Gun" that his trade began in 2022 during the Covid, driven by the realization that his regular income could never match Seoul's housing prices. By mid-to-late 2024, his initial cautious strategy of accumulating mega-cap US tech stocks like Google, Apple, and Advanced Micro Devices paid off handsomely, with some holdings posting gains of 100 percent to 150 percent.
After liquidating his US stock portfolio in January 2025, Chongchong pivoted to high-risk products, including double-leveraged exchange-traded funds tracking Tesla and Palantir. June 2025, when he speculated on cryptocurrency-themed stocks such as Circle and Bitmine, yielding a profit of nearly 200 million won in a single week and pushing his trading accounts to their peak values.
His luck ended when he heavily concentrated his capital into a highly speculative food company that claimed to be expanding into cryptocurrency and gold trading. Despite initially sitting on a temporary paper profit of 150 million won, Chongchong failed to exit the position in time. The stock sharply reversed, converting his gains into a swift 200 million won absolute loss.
Desperate to claw back his capital, Chongchong fell into a cycle of compulsive day trading through August and September 2025, losing 20 million to 30 million won consistently every month for half a year.
According to his publicly disclosed brokerage statements, his two main trading accounts recorded deficits of 450 million won and 154 million won respectively. Combined with fresh losses incurred this year, his cumulative deficit reached 700 million won, completely wiping out all earnings from his music choir days to his YouTube career.
In the video’s comment section, Chongchong wrote, “I mustered the courage to upload this video to remind you not to repeat my investment mistakes, and also to remind myself to forget those painful stock investment experiences, regain confidence, and strive to live a better life.”
