Bitcoin has been going up and down between $106,000 and $113,000 for what seems like 47 days in a row.

My coffee got cold while I watched.

When you look at the charts and see that nothing has changed, you know how it feels?

No changes made as it has been crypto for weeks.

Bitcoin is stuck, and everyone wants to know how to get it out.

Right Now, the Numbers Look Dull

At the moment, the market value is $3.582 trillion, and the volume is $190 billion.

Bitcoin still has 57.6% of the market, while Ethereum only has 11.7%.

At $113,398, Bitcoin is down 1.7%. At $3,474, Ethereum fell the same amount.

XRP had a good week, but in the last 24 hours it lost half of what it gained. Everything else is just going side to side.

That's not what the biggest weekly gainers say, though. Filecoin is up 61.5%, Uniswap is up 69%, and ICP is up 89.9% for the month.

Coins That Won't Break Out

Bitcoin was supposed to reach $200,000 by the end of 2025, but right now it's only shaky around $100,000.

The market hit a new all-time high in October, but then it lost $800 billion, or 19% of its value. After the bears took over, we've been stuck ever since.

In October, the Federal Reserve even lowered interest rates, which should have been good for Bitcoin.

Not true.

The price of the move was already set. Galaxy Digital analysts now think Bitcoin might only reach $120,000 before 2026, down from the $185,000 they said it would reach earlier.

A problem in and of itself? The four-year cycle is still being used by traders. A lot of long-term investors are locking in their gains because they think the top of the cycle is close. The price is going down because of that.

Then there are the things that are making people unhappy, like rising prices, high unemployment, trade wars, the longest government shutdown ever, and worries that the AI bubble will burst.

The Good News That No One Is Talking About

Bitcoin is stuck, but big changes are happening behind the scenes.

The US Treasury and the IRS just gave crypto ETFs permission to stake digital assets and give investors rewards. This is a huge deal for big money.

SoFi made it possible for regular people to trade cryptocurrencies. These guys are the first national bank to do this.

Charles Schwab, Morgan Stanley, and PNC are all planning to follow suit.

A little over half of SoFi's customers said they'd rather trade and hold crypto with a licensed bank than on its own. That means a lot for widespread use.

Ripple Isn't Following the Rules

Bitcoin isn't going to break out before Ripple moves in. They are putting a lot of pressure on traditional banks.

To buy other businesses, the company spent $4 billion in 2025. It bought the prime brokerage firm Hid and Road for $1.3 billion and the software company G Treasury for more than $1 billion. They opened Ripple Prime last week, a brokerage that lets US institutions trade over-the-counter.

They also got another $500 million in funding, which raised their value to $50 billion. XRP prices have been staying the same, but that could change if it works with traditional banks.

What a Wild Ride It Was

China said the US government took 127,000 Bitcoin worth $13 billion. They say it was part of a conspiracy to hack into the government.

The US says it was a legal police action meant to seize criminal proceeds. The coins were linked to a big crypto fraud scheme that was run by Chen C, who is the head of Cambodia's Prince Group.

Since having something is ninety-tenths of the law, China probably won't get those coins back.

What Comes Next

BTC needs to get out of this range. Derive's Shawn Dawson says that the world doesn't need any more bad news, like hacks or companies going bankrupt. That would help people trust each other again.

From $5.5 billion in July to $259 million in November, money coming into the digital asset treasury dropped by 95%. Interest from institutions is waning.

But investors still think the market will go up in the long term. Bitcoin co-founder Arthur Hayes said that the price will reach $1 million around 2028 if governments keep issuing debt.

Right now, we can only watch Bitcoin drop below $100,000. It's still cold here.