Welcome to Slate Sundays, CryptoSlate’s new weekly feature showcasing in-depth interviews, expert analysis, and thought-provoking op-eds that go beyond the headlines to explore the ideas and voices shaping the future of crypto.

Crypto payments are having a moment.

From Circle’s billion-dollar IPO to the GENIUS Act clearing a path for stablecoin regulation, the tailwinds are blowing a gale.

Even Wall Street’s biggest names, including JPMorgan and Visa, are busily incorporating stablecoin rails into their tech stacks, finally bowing to a superior technology that can transfer value trustlessly and (near) instantly worldwide.

And all this is great, except…

There’s a flipside nobody talks about: the UX is stuck in beta.

It makes even the sanest of folks want to gouge out their eyeballs with a blunt spoon.

Why?

Crypto payments are strangled by regulators and red tape

POV: crypto payment providers are rapidly being co-opted by regulators and TradFi, bogged down in cumbersome practices like KYC and KYB, and strangled in red tape.

After nine years of reporting on crypto and being paid in every token under the sun, it’s a sad reality that receiving crypto payments has become harder, not easier, despite the prevailing narrative to the contrary.

Case in point. I recently had a UK-based client with a Gemini account who wanted to send a payment in USDC to my OKX address in Dubai.

After weeks of back and forth, trying to unfreeze her business account and supply additional necessary KYB documents, she gave up, deciding that Revoult to my bank account would be faster.

If that statement wasn’t depressing enough already, here’s the hammer blow:

It was also cheaper for her to send the payment—and cheaper for me to receive it.

No wonder Gemini registered a $280 million loss in the first half of 2025. They must be losing customers like rats from a sinking ship.

As for OKX? There isn’t any real incentive to do better in the UAE since all providers charge a flat crypto-to-fiat withdrawal fee of 75 AED (around $20).

And while many industry participants are grateful for the regulatory clarity, some of us now have to stomach the double conversion: you can’t cash out to fiat from USDC in the UAE, and you can’t get paid in Tether in Europe.

Face palm.

Converting USDC to USDT to AED (and getting royally horsewhipped every time) is like replacing a horse and cart with a Ferrari, only to insist on pumping the engine with molasses.

Don’t even get me started on being crypto native. Try telling a normie that if you accidentally select the wrong network out of an ever-expanding list of options, you’ll lose all your money forever.

Or if you leave your funds on an exchange that gets hacked, you’ll lose all your money forever.

Or if you decide to self-custody and lose your seed phrase, you’ll…

Ay! Revolut, anyone?

You get the idea. Hype? It couldn’t be hypier. UX? The absolute pits.

Just another banking platform, only harder to use and more expensive, with no backup or guarantees. It feels like crypto payments are still under construction.

Borderless payments work better within borders

That’s not to say crypto payments are doing nothing right. They work pretty well transferring value within national borders. But then, so do banks.

Nearly 32% of SMBs in the U.S. have paid or accepted a payment in crypto, and of the 560 million estimated crypto owners, around a third regularly use digital assets for payments, dwarfing other DeFi activities like staking or farming.

The GENIUS Act has finally provided regulatory clarity for stablecoin issuers after years of flying blind, and it walks the tightrope pretty well: regulators want consumer protection and anti-money laundering guarantees. Markets want clear rules on what constitutes a security. The GENIUS Act delivers both.

So why does crypto payment UX still send a shiver down our spines? Aren’t blockchain transactions supposed to be cheaper and faster?

Bill Zielke is Chief Revenue Officer of BitPay, an OG crypto payments provider that aims to reduce the cost of payment processing and enable borderless crypto payments. He acknowledges that not all platforms are primed to provide the best experience, saying:

“This is a fair concern, and one we hear often from users who are navigating the world of wallets and exchanges that aren’t optimized for low-fee crypto transfers. In many cases, high costs come down to poor fee transparency, suboptimal network choices, and cash-out platforms that charge high spreads or withdrawal fees.”

He explains that BitPay’s approach is different, focused on reducing points of friction to integrate support for cost-efficient networks like Polygon, Arbitrum, Base, and Optimism. While it’s still ‘select the wrong network at your peril’, at least the fees don’t make you wince.

“Users can send and receive payments with significantly lower confirmation fees than on legacy networks like Ethereum or Bitcoin.”

Network selection is a crucial factor, as fees can be unpredictable, and network congestion has been known to cause gas fees to skyrocket.

While most retail users still rely on centralized exchanges, they routinely charge flat withdrawal fees, a la OKX. $20 is typical for cashing out, making small payments impractical.

Ben Weiss is the CEO of CoinFlip, a longstanding crypto-native company that owns and operates more than 6,000 Bitcoin ATMs worldwide. After a decade of operating in this industry, he’s observed how crypto payments have evolved, sharing:

“A lot of [crypto payments] is a flat fee. So if you’re sending Bitcoin, you might pay the same fee for sending $1 million as for $5… Crypto doesn’t work as well for smaller payments. That’s starting to change, but real efficiency takes time. There’s still a lot of work to be done on the interface and usability. That lags a couple of years behind the core technology.”

For cross-border transfers, crypto is still battling against entrenched infrastructure. For example, the World Bank’s latest study reports traditional remittance fees averaging 6.4-7%, while digital remittance via crypto and mobile channels averages about 5%.

Many DeFi rails are cheaper, but they require users to navigate arcane wallets and private keys, or bridge between networks. Normies have left the building.

Being your own bank sounds fun until it isn’t

Another hurdle for crypto payments is custody. Blockchain enables truly peer-to-peer transactions and individual sovereignty, letting anyone be their own bank. But most people don’t want to be their own bank.

Self-custody remains a nightmare for the uninitiated, and many people don’t understand the need to retain financial control, if they’ve never had their account frozen or been systematically debanked. Weiss reflects:

“Not everyone wants to self-custody or figure out how to open up a cold storage wallet to send or receive crypto; they might just want to buy an ETF. In general, I’m for anything that makes the industry bigger, and gets more people into crypto. There’s no right or wrong way.”

Zeilke adds:

“The core challenge today is still UX. Things like setting up wallets, high network fees, or fear of sending assets to the wrong address create friction for everyday users. But we’re already seeing major improvements, especially with stablecoins and Layer-2 networks, which are dramatically reducing fees and settlement times.

We’re not fully there yet, but the foundation has been laid and the framing is underway. With regulatory clarity improving and infrastructure becoming more user-friendly, we’re moving closer to a future where crypto payments are as intuitive as tapping a card.”

And until sending crypto payments is as simple as tapping a credit card, it will never take off as the preferred way to transact value worldwide.

Are we recreating the banking system we wanted to escape?

Crypto promised to be faster, cheaper, and simpler than banks. Yet the practical pain points are stubborn, and at the risk of sounding like Jamie Dimon, if crypto payments aren’t easier than the bank, what’s the point?

And as TradFi rushes to “blockchainify” its systems, are we watching banks absorb crypto tech rather than crypto replacing banks?

UX fails, hidden costs mount, and when you finally want to cash out, you find fees as punitive as wire transfers. Zielke reflects on the challenge:

“Mass adoption takes time, but I believe we are on the right path. It took decades for credit cards to become the norm, largely because it required trust, consistent infrastructure improvements, and a refined user experience. Crypto payments are following a similar trajectory, but at a much faster rate.”

So, where are we headed? The trendlines are clear: more institutional adoption, more stablecoin rails, more regulatory compliance, and an ever-increasing use of crypto for large-value payments and cross-border commerce.

Yet the road to the frictionless everyday payments experience (the one that puts crypto on par with tapping a credit card) remains long and winding.

The hurdles are no longer just technical or regulatory, but experiential. Crypto needs to consistently undercut banks, especially for small payments, and sending and receiving must be simple, transparent, and error-tolerant.

Crypto payments aren’t winning because crypto is easy; they’re winning because the old system is still slow, closed, and uninclusive. While we can take the win, we can also acknowledge significant room for improvement. Winning by default isn’t the same as winning by design.

The Ethereum price is currently locked in a narrow trading range of around $2,500, with momentum stalling despite the market’s bullish expectations. In light of this, a leading crypto analyst warns that current price action lacks the strength needed for a powerful upward move, urging traders to remain cautious. The analyst notes that without a clear breakout signal, entering the market now could expose investors to potential downside risks. 

$2,800 Breakout Key For Ethereum Price Bull Rally

A new analysis released on the X social media platform by market expert Daan Crypto Trades reveals that the Ethereum price has continued to trade within a well-defined price channel, currently holding above the $2,500 level at $2,527. The analyst emphasized that $2,800 remains the key breakout point that could trigger an Ethereum bull rally. 

Related Reading

The market expert shared a chart highlighting that ETH remains confined between a “range low” of $2,313 and a high of $2,736, with multiple failed attempts to break out of this tight structure. The chart also shows that the mid-range level of around $2,519 has become a critical point of control. 

Despite a brief rally that pushed the Ethereum price above $2,570 earlier this week, the cryptocurrency was still unable to sustain the upward move, slipping back below the $2,519 level before recovering to its current price of around $2,527. Daan Crypto Trades explains that the reason for Ethereum’s sluggish performance is its continued struggle to establish a solid footing in the $2,500 price region. Given the clear price imbalance in this zone, the analyst advises traders to exercise caution before entering the market. 

Within this range, traders may encounter increased price volatility and potential fakeouts, both above and below the key support and resistance levels. Given the unstable market environment, Daan Crypto Trades suggests that until Ethereum breaks and holds above the $2,800 mark, traders are likely to face more sideways action and unpredictable price swings. A clean breakout above $2,800 could be the key to the start of a bullish trend, improving conditions for ETH and pushing it out of its present downtrend. 

ETH Four-Year Consolidation Sees An End

Market expert Mister Crypto has also shared insights on the current Ethereum price action. The analyst declared in a recent X post that ETH is on the verge of exiting a prolonged multi-year consolidation phase. His chart, which visualizes the cryptocurrency’s historical price movements, marks two key periods—a powerful 48x rally from 2018 through 2021, followed by a four-year horizontal consolidation range that spans from the 2021 top to the present day.  

Related Reading

The analysis suggests that this extended period of range-bound movement could be a prelude to a potentially explosive bull trend, similar to the breakout seen in the past. In line with this, Mister Crypto marks a large open-ended “??X” label on his chart, suggesting the next breakout phase is imminent—though the precise magnitude is left speculative.

Featured image from Getty Images, chart from Tradingview.com

Bitcoin (BTC) price has been consolidating within a roughly $5,500 range since March 9 as the $84,000 level represents stiff overhead resistance.

Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and Bitstamp shows BTC price oscillating between $78,599 and $84,000, as shown in the chart below.

Key reasons why Bitcoin price remains flat today include:

• Trump’s trade war tensions causing uncertainty in the market.

• Weakening demand for Bitcoin and neutral funding rates.

• BTC price remains pinned below the 200-day SMA.

Broader economic uncertainty, weakening demand

Bitcoin’s price stagnation is partially due to the broader economic and geopolitical factors that are currently at play. 

What to know:

• Trump’s new policies, such as his proposed trade tariffs on Mexico and Canada, have unnerved the market.

• Investors, wary of inflation concerns and a potential tariff war, are avoiding risk assets like Bitcoin.

• As Cointelegraph recently reported, Bitcoin’s rally post-Trump’s November election has lost steam amid a weakening global economy. 

• This has resulted in weaker demand for Bitcoin, according to Glassnode.

For instance, the cost basis of 1w–1m short-term holders flattened out above that of the longer-term holders (1m–3m) in Q1, “marking an early sign of weakening demand in the immediate term.”

Related: Bitcoin price drops 2% as falling inflation boosts US trade war fears

Bitcoin’s drop below the $95,000 level saw the 1w–1m cost basis slide below the 1m–3m cost basis, “confirming a transition into net capital outflows.”

Glassnode noted:

“This reversal indicates that macro uncertainty has spooked demand, reducing new inflows… and suggests that new buyers are now hesitant to absorb sell-side pressure, reinforcing the shift from post-ATH euphoria into a more cautious market environment.”

Until the current trend changes due to macroeconomic tailwinds, such as Fed rate cuts, Bitcoin could struggle to break out of the current range, leaving it vulnerable to pullbacks toward $70,000.

Another clear signal of Bitcoin’s stagnation is in the perpetual futures funding rates. BTC funding rates, which reflect the cost of holding long or short positions in crypto futures, are hovering close to 0%, indicating increasing indecisiveness among traders.

Without speculative fuel, Bitcoin is struggling to move in either direction, leaving its price stuck in a tight range as traders wait for the next catalyst.

Bitcoin price faces stiff resistance on the upside

Bitcoin also trades below key resistance areas, as shown in the chart below:

• On March 9, BTC fell below the 200-day simple moving average (SMA) at $83,736.

• This trendline has stifled the latest efforts for a sustained recovery.

Popular crypto analyst Daan Crypto Trades says that the 200-day SMA at around $83,700 and the 200-day EMA at $86,000 are key levels as they are “solid indicators of the mid/long term trend and overall strength of the market.”

In other words, failure to produce a decisive close above the 200-day SMA and flipping it into a new support level could lead to a longer consolidation period for Bitcoin price.

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.

]]> https://earlybirdsinvest.com/why-is-bitcoin-price-stuck/feed/ 0 25079 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/bitcoins-price-stuck-within-a-relative-narrow-range-will-a-breakout-occur-soon/ https://earlybirdsinvest.com/bitcoins-price-stuck-within-a-relative-narrow-range-will-a-breakout-occur-soon/#respond Fri, 21 Feb 2025 04:50:24 +0000 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/bitcoins-price-stuck-within-a-relative-narrow-range-will-a-breakout-occur-soon/

After a sudden pullback a few days ago, Bitcoin seems to have briefly regained its upside momentum, rising from about $93,300 to $96,300. Despite the slight rebound, BTC’s price is still trending within a key range that is likely to determine its next trajectory in the short term.

Sideways Price Action Persists For Bitcoin

IC News, a crypto informative platform has delved into Bitcoin’s recent price action, revealing a crucial development. After investigating price performances, the platform outlined that the asset is trending within a relatively narrow range.

With important support and resistance levels influencing Bitcoin’s next course, this phase of sideways movement may precede a noteworthy breakout in either direction. A breakout on the upside might put BTC on a path to reclaim $100,000 and beyond, while a break below could bring the $92,000 support level into focus.

According to IC News, BTC was trading at the $96,540 level at the time of the post, continuing its cautious upward trajectory. This represents a slight gain of about 0.25% over the past day and an increase of 1.75% over the past 7 days.

In spite of recent market fluctuations, Bitcoin’s 24-hour price range of $93,388 to $96,695 keeps the flagship asset inside a relatively narrow range. Its persistent movements within the range signal the ongoing consolidation in the market.

Leading financial and on-chain data platform Glassnode has also addressed Bitcoin’s movements inside a comparatively small range. Glassnode highlighted that the asset is trading between the $93,000 and $97,000 price zone, which signals a period of consolidation as the broader market cools down.

The tight price action comes after recent volatility in the market as bulls and bears fight for control over the market. Presently, Glassnode noted that derivatives activity is declining, and market capital inflows are becoming weaker.

Furthermore, short-term holders’ accumulation patterns are mirroring past patterns, particularly in May 2021. Should a similar result unfold, Bitcoin’s price could rebound toward key resistance levels or even a new all-time high in the upcoming months as seen in 2021.

BTC’s Price To See Further Downward Pressure?

Even though BTC saw a slight upward move, a key indicator suggests that the asset might be poised for more price decline. Glassnode co-founder and analyst, Negentropic revealed the development after several rebound attempts by BTC, with each rebound weaker than the last. 

According to the expert, Bitcoin’s weak bounce from $93,500 to $95,000 highlights a lack of spot volume for a stronger move. Meanwhile, the Risk Index, a key metric for navigating price trends is showing early warning indications of downward pressure.

As long as the $97,000 and $98,500 levels are not recovered yet, Negentropic claims that the $92,000 mark is still the crucial area to watch on the downside.

Featured image from iStock, chart from Tradingview.com