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A fitness YouTuber with 200,000 subscribers has confessed to losing 700 million won (about $459,000) — savings accumulated over a lifetime — through reckless stock investments, urging his followers to take heed.
Chongchong, who runs the YouTube channel "Chongchong TV Silver Gun," said in a recently published video that he had suffered cumulative investment losses of around 700 million won over the past year or so, effectively draining his bank account. He said the money he had painstakingly saved over years — from his days in a choir to his rise as a content creator — had vanished in an instant, leaving him at a loss.
Chongchong began investing in stocks in earnest in 2022. He said he turned to investing with the goal of building wealth after concluding that his earned income alone would not be enough to buy a home in Seoul. In the early stages, he maintained a relatively conservative strategy, making incremental purchases focused on large-cap US technology stocks such as Google, Apple and AMD.
In the second half of 2024, some of his holdings posted returns of 100 to 150 percent, delivering tangible results. But as he grew fond of the gains, the scale and risk of his investments gradually increased.
He said that after suffering losses in domestic gaming stocks, he began chasing overseas momentum stocks and leveraged products to recoup the damage. He reflected that gains of several hundred percent within a month on leveraged products tied to Tesla and Palantir led him to mistakenly believe he had a natural talent for investing.
His confidence grew further when investments in Circle and Bitmine — stocks linked to virtual assets — generated a profit of about 200 million won in a single week. He even posted proof of the gains on Instagram.
But aggressive short-term trading and indiscriminate chasing of surging stocks ultimately proved his undoing. He said he concentrated large sums in specific stocks for day trading, and while he once recorded an unrealized gain of 150 million won, he missed the right moment to sell and ended up with a loss of 200 million won instead.
Driven by desperation to recover his losses, he repeatedly returned to day trading, and by August and September 2025 his total losses had swelled to around 400 million won.
The investment failures took a toll beyond his finances, disrupting his daily life as well. "I became so consumed by the stock screen that I lost all the small, everyday joys I used to feel — going for a walk, taking in the scenery," Chongchong said. "I started calculating how much I could make in the stock market instead of doing those things."
He also confessed to experiencing a kind of numbness — pinching pennies on everyday spending while losing millions of won in the market without a second thought. He revealed that the tears he shed after a fitness competition last year were not only due to disappointment over his results, but also because of the severe investment losses weighing on him at the time.
"Reckless investing doesn't just cost you money — it can destroy your health, your happiness and your relationships," he said, urging investors to approach the market with caution. He added that he plans to step away from the stock market entirely for now and focus on his core pursuits — exercise and his YouTube channel — as he works toward a fresh start.
bbo@heraldcorp.com
