The Korean stock market has officially been 'crypto-fied.' According to Bloomberg, as of 2026, the annualized volatility of the KOSPI has reached 61%. That’s not only nearly double the Nikkei 225 but even surpasses Bitcoin’s 50%. As of mid-July, the Korean stock market has triggered circuit breakers 7 times this year alone; in 2025, there wasn’t a single instance. The core reason is simple: the entire KOSPI is increasingly resembling an 'AI-leveraged token' made up of Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. These two companies account for over half of the KOSPI, and on top of that, retail investors are going wild trading single-stock leveraged ETFs. These ETFs rebalance daily, buying more when prices rise and being forced to sell faster when prices drop—essentially amplifying the flow of funds in one direction. Now, Korean regulators are stepping on the brakes: they’ve suspended the listing of new single-stock leveraged ETFs and raised the minimum cash threshold for investors from 10 million to 30 million KRW. In the past, people bought stocks to avoid the volatility of the crypto market. Now, buying Korean stocks might be even more thrilling than trading BTC. What’s truly worth noting isn’t just whether 'AI is a bubble,' but that when an index is hijacked by a few AI chip stocks and layered with retail leverage, prices no longer just reflect fundamentals—they start being driven by the market structure itself. AI may not necessarily be a bubble, but AI stocks could very well form a leveraged bubble.