Ether, altcoins dive double digits as Trump tariffs take further toll

Ether and top altcoins including Cardano fell double digits in an hour as the market continued to reel from US President Donald Trump’s first round of tariffs against imports from China, Canada and Mexico.

Ether (ETH), the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, fell 16% in a single hour to $2,368 on Feb. 3 at 2:11 am UTC.

It has since recovered to $2,521 but is still down 38% from its 2024 high of $4,078 reached on Dec. 17 — nearly six weeks after Trump’s presidential victory.

Meanwhile, Avalanche (AVAX), XRP (XRP), Chainlink (LINK), Dogecoin (DOGE) and other top altcoins have fallen over 20% in the last 24 hours, contributing to an 11.4% drop in the crypto market cap to $3.17 trillion, CoinGecko data shows.

10x Research founder Markus Thielen told Cointelegraph: “The sharp drop in altcoins reflects a wave of stop-loss triggers combined with a buyer’s strike from retail investors.”

Thielen said trading volumes had been falling over the last few weeks, “signaling a waning appetite and lack of conviction from investors.”

While the market knew Trump’s tariffs were potentially coming, they weren’t priced in because investors had been “fixated” on the DeepSeek news over the last week, Thielen wrote in an earlier Feb. 2 report.

The market could face “prolonged uncertainty” as opposed to a “one-day shock,” said Thielen. Whether these support zones hold will largely depend on how US equities perform on Feb. 3, he added.

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It comes after Nasdaq 100 futures slumped on Feb. 3, falling almost 2.7% following the tariffs announcement, while the S&P 500 and futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average were down 2% and 1.5%, respectively.

The market pullback was also reflected in the Crypto Fear & Greed Index, a measure of cryptocurrency market sentiment that fell 16 points into the “Fear” zone to a score of 44 out of 100.

The score hasn’t been below 44 since Oct. 11.

Bitcoin (BTC) has also fallen 6.8% over the last 24 hours to $94,743 — but it wasn’t hit as hard in the latest market downfall, which began in the early hours of Feb. 3.

As a result, Bitcoin dominance rose from around 61.1% to as high as 64%, TradingView data shows.

“Rising Bitcoin dominance without a corresponding increase in overall crypto market cap suggests that risk-averse traders are rotating out of altcoins and into Bitcoin,” Thielen said.

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