One supporting factor for Ethereum’s best-in-class performance has been the growth of Ethereum treasury companies.
It’s now been slightly more than four months since the White House announced “Liberation Day” tariffs. So there’s been enough time to project which cryptocurrency could be the biggest winner of Trump’s tariffs.
The answer might surprise you. It’s not Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC), which was everyone’s “flight to safety” option during the peak of tariff uncertainty. Instead, the biggest winner of Trump’s tariffs appears to be Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH).
I’ve charted the performance of seven different cryptocurrencies from April 1 to August 1: Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP (CRYPTO: XRP), Cardano (CRYPTO: ADA), Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE), Solana (CRYPTO: SOL), and Sui (CRYPTO: SUI).
The performance of Ethereum jumps right off the chart. It’s the clear outlier, and it’s not even close. Ethereum is up a whopping 144% in that time. By way of comparison, Bitcoin is only up 39%. Two hard-charging altcoins — XRP and Sui — have also outperformed Bitcoin. XRP is up 56%, while Sui is up 70%.
At the same time, two cryptocurrencies — Solana and Dogecoin — appear to be closely tracking the performance of Bitcoin. Both are up 37%. There is only one clear underperformer. That’s Cardano, which is up only 25%.
Based on these numbers alone, it appears that the clear winner of Trump’s tariffs is Ethereum. It has more than doubled the performance of the next-closest cryptocurrency, and it has absolutely trounced Bitcoin.
The tricky part is interpreting this data point. What does it mean about tariffs and their impact on cryptocurrencies? Think back to April 2, when the crypto market reacted negatively to the onslaught of unprecedented tariffs against every major trading nation. The immediate instinct of many was to pile into Bitcoin.
Four months later, that investment thesis looks increasingly flawed. For one, maybe tariffs are not so bad for cryptocurrencies after all. How can anyone make the argument that tariffs are harmful for Ethereum if it’s up a resounding 144%? Secondly, maybe Bitcoin is not the slam-dunk investment everyone thought it was. It’s still the market benchmark, but altcoins are now outperforming it.
