How Bitcoin Is Beating the S&P 500. What’s Driving the Crypto.
May 5, 2025
Bitcoin has been a big success story of the past month outperforming stocks during market turmoil that hit everything from equities and bonds to the dollar and cryptocurrencies.
That may not come as a complete shock given president Trump’s promise to make the U.S. the crypto capital of the world and create a strategic national reserve of digital coins.
Bitcoin and cryptos have historically tended to move in tandem with stocks but with bigger swings in either direction. And Bitcoin has outperformed the benchmark S&P 500 over the last 12 months, since the start of the year, and since Trump’s so-called “Liberation Day” on April 2, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
What might be more of an eye-opener is the reason for the coin’s outperformance—as well as its relative stability compared with U.S. stocks.
The reason for Bitcoin’s larger gains appears to be more about Trump’s tariff policy and how that hit stocks, rather than the president’s pro-crypto stance—and if looking at the data since the last trading day before Trump’s inauguration, S&P 500 actually beat Bitcoin.
By Friday’s closing bell, the S&P 500 was down roughly 3% since the start of 2025.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin had gained just over 4% year to date. XRP, the coin used to facilitate transactions on Ripple’s payment platform, is the only other cryptocurrency to outperform the benchmark index during this period, rising 6%. Ether, Solana and Cardano all dropped double digits.
Since April 2, Bitcoin is up about 12% while the S&P 500 is largely flat.
This led many crypto enthusiasts to hail Bitcoin as a form of ”digital gold” that can act as a risk-off during periods of uncertainty, unaffected by the geopolitics and trade policy that shook traditional markets.
Early Monday, Bitcoin is down 1.1% to $94,691 over the last 24 hours, according to CoinDesk data. Ether is down 0.1% while XRP dropped 0.6% and Cardano fell 1%. Solana was the sole riser among the big cryptos, up about 0.9%.
Write to Elsa Ohlen at elsa.ohlen@barrons.com
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