How Netherlands’ 36% tax plan could break Bitcoin’s HODL ethos
The scoop: The Netherlands has just moved to tax Bitcoin like a stock, marked to market. Lawmakers in the Dutch House backed a Box 3 overhaul that would tax “actual returns,” including annual price changes in liquid assets like BTC, at a flat 36%, even if you never sell. The plan targets Jan. 1, 2028 (pending Senate approval), turning Bitcoin’s volatility into a yearly cash-flow problem.
The Dutch House of Representatives has approved a major overhaul of the Netherlands’ Box 3 regime that would tax “actual returns” on savings and investments, including the annual change in value of liquid assets such as Bitcoin, at a flat 36% rate.
With a targeted start date of Jan. 1, 2028, pending Senate approval, the proposal signals a fundamental shift in how European governments may treat digital assets: moving from taxing the act of selling to taxing the act of holding.
While it is easy to summarize this legislative move as a “36% unrealized gains tax,” a more revealing framing is that the Netherlands is seeking to shift from a court-contested deemed-return system to one that treats many financial assets as if they were marked-to-market each year.
That shift does not just change what is taxed. It changes when Bitcoin holders feel the tax system, because BTC’s notorious volatility effectively becomes a cash-flow problem for local investors.
How Box 3 works today, and why it already creates a carry cost
Box 3 is the Netherlands’ bucket for taxing returns on assets, covering savings, investments, second homes, and more.
Currently, much of Box 3 is calculated using assumed returns and a flat tax rate. This system means that even a flat or down year can still come with a bill.
The Dutch tax authority’s 2026 guidance indicates a 36% Box 3 tax rate and an assumed return of 6.00% for “investments and other assets,” a category that includes items such as shares and bonds (and, in practice, many non-cash holdings).
That alone can create a meaningful carry cost. A simple illustration clarifies the burden: if €100,000 of Bitcoin sits in the “investments and other assets” bucket at the margin, an assumed 6.00% return implies €6,000 of taxable return.
At 36%, the bill is €2,160, or about 2.16% of the position per year before thresholds and offsets.
The 2028 proposal flips this logic entirely. Instead of “we’ll assume you earned X,” the taxable return is meant to reflect what an investor actually earned.
But for most liquid financial assets, the architecture is “capital growth” taxation (capturing income and the annual change in value) rather than waiting until a sale.
For Bitcoin, that effectively means paying tax on unrealized gains even if you never sold a Satoshi.
The plan includes mitigations designed to blunt the sharpest edges. Reporting around the reform highlights a €1,800 tax-free annual return threshold and an indefinite loss carryforward, though only losses above €500 are eligible.
Those features help, but they do not eliminate the core behavioral shift: large holders would still need liquidity even in strong Bitcoin years.
Why Bitcoin holders will feel it differently
Under a mark-to-market-like approach, Bitcoin’s most celebrated feature (big, discontinuous upside) is exactly what creates friction.
If Bitcoin rises 60% in a year, the taxable “return” on a €100,000 starting position is €60,000. At 36%, the tax is €21,600.
That is not “36% of your stack,” but it can still translate into selling a noticeable slice of holdings (or borrowing against them) to pay the bill.
The impact of this policy is magnified by the fact that Dutch investors are already deeply integrated into the crypto market, meaning this is not a niche tax on a few hobbyists.
The Netherlands has measurable exposure to crypto via regulated products. The Dutch central bank reported that at the end of October 2025, households held €182 million in crypto ETFs and €213 million in crypto ETNs.
Furthermore, pension funds held €287 million in “crypto treasury shares,” with total indirect crypto securities holdings exceeding €1 billion.
This substantial footprint suggests that a shift to annual taxation could force a migration in how these assets are held.
If compliance becomes annual and valuation-based, broker-held ETP exposure can be easier to administer than self-custody.
This aligns with a global trend noted in Fineqia’s January 2026 report, which put global digital-asset ETP assets under management at $155.8 billion at the end of the month.
These vehicles have shown they can remain “sticky” even as the broader crypto market cap falls, but the new tax regime could test that resilience.
Netherlands’ move risks spreading a Bitcoin contagion
The potential for contagion has drawn sharp criticism from industry heavyweights.
Rickey Gevers, a cybersecurity expert, warned that these mechanics are genuinely high-risk to market stability.
According to him:
“The tax on unrealized gains can cause a bank run if investors panic. If everyone starts selling on one specific date to secure cash to pay the tax, the price will crash like crazy. That crash itself can then trigger even more panic, causing even more investors to sell. Everyone sees the value of their portfolio dropping, while at the same time knowing that the amount of tax they have to pay will not go down.”
At the same time, Balaji Srinivasan, Coinbase’s former CTO, argued that the impact of these taxations is not limited to local markets. He presented the idea as a contagion risk, where forced liquidation pressure spills into price formation.
He wrote:
“It’s not just that you don’t want to hold assets as a Dutchman. You also don’t want a Dutchman to hold your assets.”
Srinivasan outlined a hypothetical liquidity spiral to illustrate the risk.
He described a scenario in which an asset has a total market cap of $10,000, with 10 shares held by 10 different Dutch holders, each paying near zero. If the share price hits $1,000 on tax day, each holder faces a 36% tax liability of $360.
The crypto entrepreneur explained:
“The first guy sells his one share, gets $1,000, and pays $360 in tax while retaining $640. But the first guy’s sale reduces the market price to $960 per share. So when the second guy sells, he only retains $600 after paying $360 in tax.”
By the time the seventh holder sells, the price could collapse to $200 per share, a reasonable scenario if 60% of the cap table is dumped.
At that price, the seventh holder must sell their entire position for $200 and still owe $160 in taxes.
He added:
“The 8th, 9th, and 10th guys are even more screwed. By the time they sell, the price will likely have crashed to $100 per share or less. As with the 7th guy, even 100% liquidation will not cover their tax burden.”
Srinivasan, who expressed sympathy for what he termed the “formerly Flying Dutchmen, now Crying Dutchmen,” suggested this dynamic could force investors to block residents of wealth-taxing jurisdictions from cap tables to avoid liquidation contagion.
The exit tax and European contagion
An annualized approach to taxing price moves increases the value of another policy tool, exit taxes.
If taxpayers can reduce future liability by moving before the start of a taxable period, governments often respond by tightening the rules on departure.
In the Netherlands, the exit-tax conversation is no longer abstract. A Dutch government letter following parliamentary debate on taxation of the extremely wealthy explicitly references motions calling for an EU-level exit tax and for developing national exit-tax options.
Separately, the Dutch tax authority notes it may issue a “protective assessment” in certain emigration situations, illustrating that protecting the claim when someone leaves is already a familiar concept in the system.
This is part of a wider European trend. Germany expanded elements of exit taxation to certain investment fund holdings from Jan. 1, 2025, potentially taxing previously unrealized “hidden reserves” when individuals relocate.
France already has an exit tax that applies to qualifying unrealized gains when leaving the country.
Alex Recouso, the founder of CitizenX, argues that this pattern is predictable by noting that:
“It always starts with an unrealized gains tax. Then, an exit tax. Finally, it’s global taxation.”
Recouso pointed to France’s proposal in the 2026 National Budget to adopt citizenship-based taxation, under which citizens would pay tax on global income if they move to a region with a tax rate 40% lower than France’s.
He also highlighted the UK’s challenges, noting that after a capital gains tax increase, the country lost more than 15,000 high-net-worth individuals in 2025, resulting in a 10% decline in net capital gains tax revenue.
From taxation to confiscation?
The Netherlands’ move lands as EU enforcement capacity is rising.
DAC8 (the EU’s latest update to administrative cooperation) expands automatic exchange of information to crypto-asset transactions, with rules entering into force on Jan. 1, 2026.
This infrastructure makes annualized crypto taxation feasible by ensuring reliable data flows from service providers.
However, critics view these developments as an existential threat to property rights.
Recouso framed the situation as a transition “from taxation to confiscation,” warning that EU countries are raising taxes and blocking exits because they are effectively bankrupt.
“Eventually, they will try to seize your assets,” Recouso said, comparing the situation to the US seizure of gold under Executive Order 6102.
He added:
“The right to exit is a fundamental human right. Just look at the history: all the worst states have revoked the human right to exit.”
In light of this, Recouso advised holding Bitcoin in self-custody and obtaining second passports from friendly jurisdictions like El Salvador, echoing Ray Dalio’s sentiment that “location is as important as your allocation.”
So, if the Netherlands’ 2028 plan becomes law, it will be one of the clearest examples in Europe of Bitcoin moving from a “sell-event tax story” to a “hold-event tax story.”
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