Bitcoin, Ripple, Ethereum, HODL and all crypto

There is a lot happening in crypto. Bitcoin, Ethereum and others have enjoyed great gains in 2025. There has also been a sharp sell-off from the earlier highs. While inflows and outflows are the true cause of those gains and losses, the reality is that there are lot of undercurrents all working simultaneously. It’s a lot for traders and HODLrs to digest all in one sitting.

Tactical Bulls is tracking the key developments in crypto as the end of Q3 is turning into Q4 and as year-end for 2025 starts looking into 2026. Most are very positive for the crypto outlook beyond 2025.

There are many fresh developments driving crypto at the present time.  While there are other issued, the lead developments are around potential tax changes, central bank predictions, continued reserve buyers, $3+ trillion valuations directly, and valuations being paid by the venture capital and institutional investing community. And there are these megatrends that are supportive as well.

And that’s just the start of it…

Trump’s Low/No Tax, of Sorts, and Maybe…

One bit of fresh news is that The Trump administration is reportedly advancing on prior efforts to create low taxes or no taxes on crypto — even if it isn’t universal. The administration is reportedly seeking to establish de minimis exemptions for small crypto transactions in a way that it could simplify using crypto as a means of payments for everyday purchases. The move would exempt crypto transactions under $300 from being taxed. There had been a prior effort in 2020 that would have eliminated taxation on transactions of $200 and a similar effort in 2022, but neither came to fruition.

As the tax laws stand today, crypto holders using their coins for payments, or their brokerage/trading accounts, would have to figure out a cost-basis of the underlying crypto for each transaction and that would then be taxed if there are gains. Imagine a tax like that on regular bank accounts. This could be a key development that would enable mass adoption of crypto for every day payments.

While every crypto holder would love to see no taxes at all on any gains in crypto, there may be a dark side to that. Imagine all of the millions of coins that are owned which have 200%, 500% and even 2000% profits in the, if there were suddenly no taxes at all on any size then it’s a good bet that crypto bros would be dumping coins galore to lock in gains with no taxes due. That may be much more than the market can absorb in a short period.

Like Gold Reserves, Central Banks Could Be Cypto Bros Too…

Deutsche Bank has issued a report in late September signaling that Bitcoin may begin to appear on balance sheets of central banks. While the outlook is not an absolute, and not an immediate trend to look for, the large European institution believes central banks may start treating Bitcoin similar to gold in reserve assets. As far as when — by 2030.

And while this is a positive for Bitcoin, Deutsche Bank did warn that neither Bitcoin nor gold were likely to replace and topple the U.S. dollar as the world’s primary reserve currency with about 57% of global reserve assets.

Deutsche Bank is also not anti-gold in its call. The report predicts that gold will likely continue to keep its lead in official holdings (for now).

Crypto’s Top 3 Valued Close to $3 Trillion…

Crypto’s top 3 (minus stablecoins) are still valued at nearly $3 trillion. Bitcoin dominates by far, but others are looking to maintain their rightful spots in order of usefulness:

• Bitcoin at $110,000… market cap ~$2.2 trillion.
• $ETH at $4,0000… market cap ~$480 billion.
• $XRP at $2.79… market cap ~$167 billion.

Reserve Buyers Still Buying…

Strategy Inc. (NASDAQ: MSTR) has continued buying Bitcoin. Its last purchase was 196 Bitcoin for $22.1 million. This gives Strategy the largest private ownership ranking of all Bitcoin holders. It now holds 640,031 Bitcoin – more than any (know) single central bank in the world. That’s 3.04% of all 21 million fully diluted coins before considering what hasn’t been mined to date and before considering how many coins have been lost or forgotten. Strategy’s own market cap is $92 billion on last look — versus about $71.7 billion worth of Bitcoin it already owns.

BitMine Immersion Technologies (NASDAQ: BMNR) has now added nearly $1 billion more in $ETH over the last week, with the effort under Thomas H. Lee now holding close to $11 billion worth of Ethereum — with 2.66 million tokens now over 2% of the total $ETH supply. BitMine Immersion continues to hold the largest Ethereum treasury of any publicly traded stock. Oh, and its market cap is right at $15 billion.

More Cash, Massive Valuations…

Multiple sources have reported that Tether is in the process of raising up to $20 billion in venture funding from venture capital and institutional investors. That is very impressive on the surface, but what is more impressive (and scary at the same time) is that the reports are putting the implied valuation for the operation up around the $500 billion for a full valuation.

And while Ripple has already raised funds, and moved past prior “problems” with regulators, a recent private offering of Ripple noted that it had launched a $1 billion tender offer at an estimated value of $40 billion. Ripple’s key success was that it had sold more than 3.2 billion XRP coins in 2024 and that it had generated close to (estimated) revenue of $2.4 billion. Ripple had submitted an application for a U.S. banking license in July 2025 — and in September Ripple signed agreement with Spain’s top bank BBVA to deliver a scalable and secure custody service for tokenized assets.

Key Stats Still Support Strong Bitcoin Prices….

There are some statistics that Bitcoin and crypto investors just cannot ignore. You already saw that the top three cryptos come to about $3 trillion in assets. With Tether at $174 billion and USD Coin at $73 billion in stablecoins, that’s almost $250 billion more with these sums only growing from here.

The CoinLedger website represented in August/2025 that 19.88 million BTC have been mined — that’s 94.76% of the full 21 million coin supply limit. The site also estimates, that 3 million to 4 million BTC (14% to as much as 19%) are permanently lost, forgotten about or at unrecoverable.

Bitcoin ownership remains highly concentrated. CoinLedger represented that just 83 wallets holding 11.2% of the total Bitcoin supply and long-term holders control 74% of circulating BTC. And only about 3.5 million BTC are actively traded and 86% of trading volume is driven by large investors.

The breakdown of what is “known” to be held by national treasuries and sovereign wealth was listed as follows for August /2025:

• The UAE … 420,000 BTC
• United States … 198,012 BTC
• China (PRC)… 190,000
• United Kingdom … 61,245
• Ukraine … 46,351
• Bhutan … 11,286
• El Salvador … 6,255

Now consider that there are nearly 60 million millionaires around the globe. And consider that over 20 million of those millionaires are in the U.S. alone. It has always been an argument of what happens to the price if just the millionaires decide they have to own just a single Bitcoin. It’s impossible to quantify in raw dollar terms, but the obvious answer is that the valuation of a scarce asset that doesn’t have enough supply to meet demand translates to much higher prices. So say Economics 101 and Economics 201 at least.

And what about the cost of mining a single Bitcoin? Estimates range from under $80,000 to over $80,000 — to well over $100,000 all-in to mine a single Bitcoin. The reality is that different power sources (like nuclear) and partnerships with electric providers make determining a true average cost almost irrelevant.

And while the last “halving” in April of 2024 reduced the block reward for miners down to 3.125 Bitcoins per block (from 6.25), the next halving in 2028 (now just over 2.5 years away) will reduce the reward to miners down to just 1.5625 bitcoins. Will miners start to quit mining due to lower margins and unsuccessful efforts or will the price rise enough to justify the effort and risk?

More Cash, Massive Valuations…

Multiple sources have reported that Tether is in the process of raising up to $20 billion in venture funding from venture capital and institutional investors. That is very impressive on the surface, but what is more impressive (and scary at the same time) is that the reports are putting the implied valuation for the operation up around the $500 billion for a full valuation.

And while Ripple has already raised funds, and moved past prior “problems” with regulators, a recent private offering of Ripple noted that it had launched a $1 billion tender offer at an estimated value of $40 billion. Ripple’s key success was that it had sold more than 3.2 billion XRP coins in 2024 and that it had generated close to (estimated) revenue of $2.4 billion. Ripple had submitted an application for a U.S. banking license in July 2025 — and in September Ripple signed agreement with Spain’s top bank BBVA to deliver a scalable and secure custody service for tokenized assets.

And now the U.S. SEC has approved proposed rule changes by three national securities exchanges that will allow them to “adopt generic listing standards for exchange-traded products that hold spot commodities, including digital assets.” And the administration has started moving to make it easier to invest in (or get exposure to) crypto in retirement accounts like IRA and 401/K plans.

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As noted, there is a lot going on all at once. Not every single aspect is as positive as other aspects, but the overall climate remains quite positive — even if Bitcoin did pull back from over $120,000 to under $110,000 recently.