Summary Reiterate a buy rating on Bitcoin, citing renewed perspectives with new ETFs. The on-chain metrics studied also seem like a great combination to take Bitcoin to a new ATH. Despite modest September gains, BTC is decoupling from traditional assets, offering portfolio diversification and risk management benefits. Maintain a $138,000 target price for BTC by the end of 2025, supported by strong seasonality and expanding institutional participation, while noting risks from large holder sell-offs. Investment Thesis I reiterate my buy recommendation on Bitcoin ( BTC-USD ). This article is a continuation of my initial coverage article published on November 29, 2024, and my last article about the thesis was published on July 10, 2025. The month of September is over, and we will analyze events and perspectives for the thesis. An analysis of on-chain metrics shows that there is a clear combination of factors that can bring even higher Bitcoin prices. What Is The Best Way To Buy Bitcoin? Before starting data analysis, I intend to answer a frequent question in the comments: What is the best way to buy bitcoin? The answer depends on the investor's profile. The investor who chooses to perform self-custody (through a decentralized wallet) has ample control of his wallet, but must be aware of the risks. In this model, the investor must organize to keep their wallet secure, this includes keeping the seed phrase and mitigating any theft or equipment failures. Therefore if you are not an organized investor to maintain a seed phrase in security, or feel insecure of this modality, you should choose to invest through an ETF. Next I will describe the main ETFs. Name Ticker AUM Sponsor Fee iShares Bitcoin Trust IBIT $87 billion 0.25% Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund FBTC $21 billion 0.25% Grayscale Bitcoin Trust GBTC $20 billion 1.50% Grayscale Bitcoin Mini Trust BTC $5 billion 0.15% ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF ARKB $4 billion 0.21% Bitwise Bitcoin ETF BITB $4 billion 0.20% VanEck Bitcoin Trust HODL $2 billion 0.20% Franklin Bitcoin ETF EZBC $0.6 billion 0.19% Invesco Galaxy Bitcoin ETF BTCO $0.6 billion 0.25% If you want economy and don't care about less liquidity, you can choose Grayscale Bitcoin Mini Trust. However, the iShares Bitcoin Trust has the best cost benefit when we analyze liquidity and sponsor fees, in my opinion. Context Bitcoin rose 2.70% between September 1 and September 30, but despite the modest gains, the events were relevant. The top 100 public Bitcoin treasury companies held more than 1 million bitcoins. As a reference, the same companies had 416 thousand bitcoins the previous year. Additionaly, a survey conducted at the end of August by BofA with Fund Managers shows that 75% have no exposure to cryptocurrencies, meaning there is a lot of space for institutional adoption and valuation of Bitcoin. Majority of FMS investors are not structurally allocated to crypto (BofA) The fact is that, in general, topics such as favorable regulatory winds, institutional adoption, and changes in sentiment have already been widely discussed. Now we need to analyze what the next catalysts will be. New Strategies In Bitcoin ETFs One of the new catalysts, in my opinion, will be the launch of new strategies with ETFs. As new regulations are simplified, we will soon have products with Covered Call, Systematic Call Writing, Synthetic Covered Call among many others. As an example, BlackRock registered its iShares Bitcoin Premium ETF , a covered bitcoin strategy for yield investors. This may attract new institutional and retail investors, generating greater demand that will drive the price higher, and this could extend to other cryptocurrencies. As a reference, the SEC has postponed a decision on the launch of seven ETFs until October. Among other examples, CBOE plans to launch continuous Bitcoin and Ethereum, starting on November 10th. On-Chain Metrics Other data that makes me optimistic are the on-chain metrics. Let’s look first at the Exchange Whale Ratio. This indicator shows the largest inflows to exchanges in relation to the total. Of course, a high value may indicate selling pressure. Bitcoin Exchange Whale Ratio – All Exchanges (CryptoQuant) As we can see, the current 0.35 levels suggest an optimistic scenario, as whales are not dominating inflows to exchanges. This is another prospective sign that makes me optimistic about the thesis. Among other on-chain metrics, we can analyze the Active Addresses metric. The chart is below, and it is curious to note that the levels are at the same point as in 2020. This suggests that we are not in a euphoric market, which is positive in my view. BTC: Number of Active Addresses (Glassnode) Finally, the above feeling is again corroborated by the implied volatility of Bitcoin's options. The graph below combines the Bitcoin Deribit Volatility Index and implied volatility itself, and the result is that the market expects low volatility. BTC DVol Index Vol of Vol (Deribit (Deribit Insights / Deribit Metrics)) In my opinion, this is the typical combination for a price breakup. We have low selling pressure (Whale Ratio), high activity network (Active Addresses) and a relatively complacent market, as we saw above. The market is silently accumulating for a breakout, and statistics are in favor of this hypothesis, as we will see. Target Price In all my Bitcoin articles , I bring a metric to estimate a target price for Bitcoin, and it will be no different this time. Now, let's estimate the target price through statistics, since October has been by far the best month for Bitcoin since 2012. As we can see below, we have an average return of 18.4% in the month and an 82% win rate. Seasonality (Spider) By the time I write this article, Bitcoin is worth $116,777; therefore, the estimates indicate that the price could reach $138,000. Of course, past returns are not a guarantee of future returns, especially in the following month, but this will be my target for Bitcoin at the end of 2025. Based on this analysis, I reiterate the recommendation to buy Bitcoin. Before citing the thesis risks, I want to point out that Bitcoin is losing correlation with other assets and metrics. The chart below shows the decoupling between the price of Bitcoin and global M2 liquidity. This increasingly drives adoption by the institutional public, in my opinion, as the asset can finally be used in a risk management context for portfolios. Bitcoin Price vs Global M2 Liquidity (Bloomberg) Potential Threats To The Thesis Still on the theme of decoupling, we will make a Bitcoin comparison with gold. As we can see in the chart below, Bitcoin prices have decoupled from gold, and at other times, this has meant the beginning of large drops in the price of Bitcoin. Gold and Digital Gold (Bloomberg) Another very sensitive data point concerns investment settlements. As we can see in the chart below, September showed the largest settlements of long positions of the year. Total Liquidation Chart (Coinglass) More intriguing is that when we expand our analysis, we see that September showed the largest sell-off among large holders since 2022. Therefore, despite the pillars, it is interesting that investors evaluate the risks of the thesis, especially regarding flow. Bitcoin: Total Balance and Balance Change of Large Holders (1K-10K balance) (CryptoQuant Provisional) The Bottom Line Bitcoin ended September with a modest high; however, there are several signs that the investment thesis is promising. There is a Bitcoin ETFs market taking more and more structured products. Additionally, the combination of low pressure, high network activity, and a market expecting little volatility can be the perfect combination for a new ATH. Based on this analysis, I reiterate my recommendation to buy Bitcoin. Estimates suggest a target price of $138,000 at the end of 2025, and this represents an excellent return given the increasingly significant buyer flow.
