The private side: box 3
Privately held crypto sits in box 3: above the allowance of €59,357 per person a deemed return is taxed at 36% — and the actual gains, however spectacular, stay outside the income tax. The boundary is activity: systematic trading with scale, tooling and leverage crosses into taxed enterprise. Holders hold; traders trade into a different regime — the line is a facts test worth one written analysis.
The business side: the BV
Building in crypto — a protocol, a service, a licensed platform (the MiCA route) — belongs in the BV: costs deduct, profit meets 19% to €200,000, tokens and treasury live under a written policy: the treasury chapter, and the holding above pools results for the exit: the skeleton. Token grants to the founder’s private sphere are taxable moments — priced and papered on receipt, deliberately.
The founder’s levers and timing
The director-shareholder (DGA) runs the standard combination through the build: the €58,000 benchmark with a lower salary agreed in writing with the tax administration, private liquidity via borrowing up to €500,000 from the own BV — together typically keeping €18,000–€20,000 per year working — and distributions timed into the 24.5% band when liquidity events land: the combination and the timing playbook.