Bankless · Friday, July 31, 2026
South Korea's stock market, the KOSPI, experienced a dramatic 40% decline in July, resulting in approximately $2 trillion in losses and over 500,000 accounts being liquidated. This sharp downturn was exacerbated by the recent introduction of levered single-stock ETFs and a heavy concentration of memory stocks in the domestic market, which were central to the AI trade.
“Welcome, Bank of the Station, to the weekly roll-up. It is the fifth Friday of July, and we have all of Korea getting liquidated. Two trillion dollars a race. That's 1.2 million accounts getting margin called.”
“Imagine your stock market, Ryan, being down 40% in the month of July. Well, that's what Korea's got going for it.”
“To zero. In the month of July. To zero. To zero, yeah. Wow. Yeah, over 500,000 accounts. And that 320 to 360 estimate, that was from last week, not even this week. So potentially like over half a million accounts fully liquidated because it went down 40% in 40 days.”