Bitcoin’s dominance of the cryptocurrency market reached 64.89% today, its highest level since January 2021, as the price of Bitcoin topped $97,000 Friday morning.

BTC’s dominance—its capitalization as a percentage of the entire market’s cap—has risen from around 57.90% at the start of the year, according to TradingView data.

It had dropped to 55% by early December, as euphoria following Donald Trump’s election victory pushed altcoin prices to new highs.

Yet this positive sentiment turned to fear and uncertainty when the Trump administration began imposing (and ramping up) tariffs in February and March, dampening investor appetite for altcoins.

And while Bitcoin itself was hurt by the tariff fallout, recent exemptions and compromises from the Trump administration have boosted the cryptocurrency, without inviting a full recovery for many major alts.

Bitcoin’s Friday surge to $97,000 puts it just 10.9% below its all-time high of $108,786 set in January, whereas the likes of Ethereum, Solana and Dogecoin are down 54%, 43% and 61% respectively on highs set in either December or January, per data from CoinGecko.

At time of publication, Bitcoin has retraced slightly to $96,947, up 0.7% on the day.

Bitcoin’s first-mover advantage

For David Morrison, a Senior Market Analyst at Trade Nation, Bitcoin has outperformed most alts during the past few months for various reasons, including its first-mover advantage.

He told Decrypt, “It has high acceptance relative to its peers and the more speculative coins thanks to its relatively friendly regulatory environment, which, under this Trump administration, is expected to improve further.”

Morrison also explains that, even during more bearish periods, investment in Bitcoin remains attractive to retail and institutions because its “supply is strictly limited,” in contrast to many alts.

“It has also shown resilience despite recent market turbulence, and investors can now see a decent history of bounce-backs following large pullbacks,” he added.

This may prove key for as long as tariffs weigh down the U.S. and global economy, with Bitcoin’s relative resilience during this period likely to help it increase its market cap dominance.

Investor flight boosts Bitcoin

Bitcoin’s position has also been helped by investor flight from U.S. treasuries and other U.S.-based assets, with Bitcoin ETF flows outstripping flows for gold ETFs by $4 billion this week.

“Institutional demand could help increase Bitcoin’s market dominance, particularly should it rise further and break above 70% or so,” said Morrison. “There’s far more confidence in Bitcoin than most altcoins, although a few of the latter should benefit due to their specific uses.”

On the other hand, the situation may change or reverse if the U.S. can manage to broker some kind of satisfactory resolution or trade deal with China, and not to mention the rest of the world.

There have been signs that the Trump administration is willing to negotiate with its Chinese counterpart, with Beijing currently “evaluating” an offer of trade talks.

Should the macroeconomic picture improve, this could eventually lead to a more bullish cryptocurrency market, which in turn could reduce Bitcoin’s dominance in time.

“Rising risk appetite, should it continue, has typically led investors and traders to expand their horizons beyond Bitcoin,” said Morrison. “There should be decent opportunities for more speculative coins, and no doubt some of these can outperform Bitcoin in percentage gains.”