2025 has been the 12 months of “laborious belongings,” together with gold and bitcoin (BTC), the latter usually dubbed “digital gold.” As financial coverage eased, traders rotated into these inflation-hedging belongings.
However that’s not the entire story. In case you had been laser-focused on gold and BTC this 12 months, you could have missed two even stronger performers: silver and ethereum (ETH). As gold and BTC cooled in latest months, silver and ETH stole the highlight.
The chart beneath compares the year-to-date worth appreciation of those 4 belongings. It’s clear that whereas ETH lagged the others till April, it’s since shot as much as overtake them.
Whereas gold and BTC get many of the press and the highlight, it’s not stunning that the second-largest belongings of their respective asset courses (valuable metals and crypto) have outperformed this 12 months. In truth, in an earlier version of this column, I’d written that primarily based on earlier crypto market patterns, ETH might effectively outperform BTC in 2025—and to this point, that’s been the case.
How excessive might BTC and ETH go in 2025?
In my earlier column, I’d written that it will be affordable to count on BTC to probably hit $160,000 (all figures in U.S. {dollars} until in any other case specified). Different main Wall Avenue analysts, together with Citigroup and FundStrat’s Tom Lee, have steered that BTC might attain about $200,000 or extra earlier than this bull market is over. So, what does that imply for ETH?
If previous cycles are any information, this crypto bull market might nonetheless have legs.
ETH is at the moment buying and selling at $4,496, however a transfer to $8,000 wouldn’t be unreasonable. That will symbolize a 64% achieve from right now and would nonetheless be lower than 2x its earlier all-time excessive of $4,878 (set in November 2021). In each prior bull market since ETH’s launch in 2015, it has set a brand new all time excessive with good points of not less than 270% from the earlier one. An roughly 100% achieve from its final peak would really be comparatively conservative.
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Ethereum ETFs lead the cost in ETH resurgence
ETH ETFs did for ethereum in 2025 what BTC ETFs did for BTC in 2024: supplied the legitimacy and means for establishments and different massive traders to allocate a proportion of their capital to ETH with out exposing themselves to the dangers related to direct publicity to the cryptocurrency itself.
The chart beneath clearly exhibits how inflows to ETH ETFs picked up in April-Could 2025—coinciding with the start of ETH’s 2025 bull run. July and August had been bumper months for ETH ETFs with internet inflows of $4.86 billion and $3.23 billion, respectively.
Canadian traders who’re bullish on ETH are spoiled for selection with regard to ETH ETFs. These ETFs are engaging to traders as a result of they are often held in registered accounts like tax-free financial savings accounts (TFSAs), registered retirement financial savings plans (RRSPs), first dwelling financial savings accounts (FHSAs), and others.
Study extra: Find out how to make investments tax-free in a bitcoin ETF
Do you have to put money into ETH treasury firms?
After the success of Technique (MSTR), Michael Saylor’s Nasdaq-listed BTC treasury firm, a brand new class of ETH-focused treasury firms have emerged. These firms observe an analogous playbook to MSTR: holding a good portion of their company reserves in ETH, aiming to build up extra over time via each worth appreciation and staking rewards.
Ethereum staking entails locking up ETH to assist safe the community and validate transactions. In return, stakers earn further ETH—considerably like dividends in conventional fairness investing.
Right here’s a comparability of the 2 most distinguished ETH treasury firms at the moment buying and selling on public markets that Canadian traders can purchase:
So, do you have to put money into an ETH treasury firm? It’s nonetheless far too early to inform how this new class of ETH-focused treasury firms will carry out. Each BMNR and SBET solely introduced their treasury methods in June or July 2025—that’s hardly sufficient time for significant worth discovery. Most particular person traders in Canada could need to persist with ETH itself or to ETH ETFs, of which Canada has many to supply.