The trade war unleashed by the USA under Donald Trump on the entire world is effectively a world war, although fought only in the markets and not with bombs.
For this reason, many are calling it the same “terza guerra mondiale”, even if it is very different from the first two.
As for the crypto markets, the curious thing is that it is already having negative consequences on the prices of many cryptocurrencies, but not on Bitcoin.
World War III and the crypto
Donald Trump took office at the White House on January 20, 2025.
Taking as a reference the overall capitalization of the crypto market, which also includes Bitcoin and stablecoin, the all-time high was reached on Tuesday, December 17, 2024, above 3.730 billion dollars.
However, precisely on January 20, it had risen to 3.690 trillion, therefore it was still effectively at its peak at the time of Trump’s inauguration.
Until January 31, it hadn’t dropped much, but starting from February 1, it began a decline that might still be ongoing.
In particular, on February 3rd, it had already dropped to 2.810 trillion dollars, and at the end of the month, with the start of the commercial world war, it ended up reaching a new annual low at 2.550 trillion.
In March, it dropped to 2,440, and after the enormous blow dealt by Trump’s USA to global trade on April 2, followed by the escalation with China through tariffs, it fell to 2,310 billion dollars. In less than three months, it lost more than 37%, only to bounce back to the current 2,660 billion.
But there is a big difference between altcoin and Bitcoin
The crypto market and Bitcoin
There is a metric, called Total3, which measures the sum of the market capitalizations of all altcoin, meaning without Bitcoin, excluding Ethereum and stablecoin.
The all-time high of Total3 was reached on December 7, 2024, at 1.160 billion dollars, which is not much higher than the previous all-time high of 2021.
Since then, the loss up to the annual minimum of April 7, 2025, has been 43%.
Instead, Bitcoin compared to the all-time high in January has decreased by only 32%, which is significantly less than the altcoin.
This difference further widens if only the main criptovalute are taken into consideration.
As of today, the price of BTC is at -22% from the all-time highs, which is not very low, considering what Bitcoin has accustomed us to over the years.
Ethereum instead is even at -66%, moreover without having managed to reach new highs after 2021.
XRP is at -44%, and Solana at -55%. From this perspective, only BNB holds, which is still at -25%.
Excluding the stablecoin, among the top thirty cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, only LEO of Bitfinex performs better than Bitcoin, but its -6.5% is from the highs of just a month ago.
The support of Bitcoin
It therefore seems that Trump’s third commercial world war has had a still limited impact on the price of Bitcoin, while on other crypto it has really caused enormous damage, primarily on Ethereum.
It should also be highlighted how the dominance of BTC has actually been in almost constant growth since December 2022, although in the second half of November 2024 it fell from 60% to 55%. However, from Sunday, April 6, 2025, it has consistently been above 63%, and this trend could also continue.
The fact is that the price of Bitcoin has recently bounced twice just below $75,000, which currently acts as a kind of support, although perhaps more psychological than technical.
For Ethereum, it seems that there are continuous descending lows, and without similar support during each crisis, the price drops more and more. The situation seems to be the same for Solana.
In other terms, given that the terza guerra mondiale commerciale has just started, and it will certainly not end soon, while on one side Bitcoin holds thanks to a sort of price support, for the altcoin instead this resistance is not there.
Total3 itself does not seem to have a support to rely on, and at this point it cannot be ruled out that, if the situation does not resolve soon, the altcoin may suffer for a while longer, with the dominance of Bitcoin consequently set to rise further.
The hypothesis circulating is that until at least the end of April the situation could remain substantially this way, and that for a true recovery perhaps we will have to wait until June. However, it should not be forgotten that the crypto markets are literally driven by Bitcoin, so if the price of BTC were to recover at some point, it is likely that it will end up dragging along the altcoin as well.
