The Contenders
When Stripe, the $9.2 billion payments giant, officially pulled the plug on Bitcoin support on April 23, 2018, it sent shockwaves through the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Stripe had been Bitcoin’s most prominent mainstream payments champion since 2014, when it became the first major payments company to embrace the cryptocurrency. Its departure was not a whim but a carefully reasoned exit, documented in a detailed blog post that laid bare Bitcoin’s failures as a payment medium.
The question now facing the market was obvious: which altcoins were positioned to fill the void? On this date, several contenders were vying for the payments crown, each with distinct technical approaches and market momentum. Bitcoin Cash at $1,432 was surging 88% weekly. Litecoin at $152.25 was proving its transaction efficiency. Ethereum at $642.55 was evolving beyond smart contracts into a broader platform. And Stellar at $0.3721 was building bridges to traditional finance that Stripe itself found compelling enough to seed-fund.
Tech Stack Showdown
Stripe’s complaints about Bitcoin were specific and technical: confirmation times had risen substantially, transaction fees had ballooned to tens of dollars, and the failure rate of fiat-denominated transactions had increased due to price volatility. These are measurable problems, and each contender addressed them differently.
Bitcoin Cash offered the most direct solution. Its 8MB block size compared to Bitcoin’s 1MB meant significantly higher throughput. Transaction fees on the BCH network were fractions of a cent, and confirmation times remained around 10 minutes — the same as BTC but with far less mempool congestion. Stripe explicitly mentioned Bitcoin Cash as a potential future option.
Litecoin presented an equally compelling case with a proven track record. On April 23, 2018, a single Litecoin transaction worth $99 million was processed in approximately 2.5 minutes for a fee of just $0.40. This kind of efficiency was exactly what Stripe said Bitcoin could no longer deliver. Litecoin’s Scrypt-based mining algorithm and 2.5-minute block times gave it a structural advantage for payment processing.
Ethereum, while primarily a smart contract platform, was also being used for payments through various token standards. However, at $642.55 per ETH and with gas costs fluctuating unpredictably due to ICO activity, it was hardly an ideal medium for everyday transactions. Stripe mentioned Ethereum and OmiseGO as promising, but more for their broader ecosystem ambitions than for direct payment processing.
Stellar, which Stripe had seed-funded, was perhaps the most strategically positioned. Its consensus protocol settled transactions in 3-5 seconds with negligible fees, and its focus on cross-border payments aligned directly with Stripe’s core business of internet commerce. At $0.3721 per XLM with a $6.9 billion market cap, Stellar was the dark horse in this race.
Community and Ecosystem
The altcoin communities reacted swiftly to Stripe’s announcement. Bitcoin Cash advocates seized on the moment as validation of their core thesis — that Bitcoin had abandoned its original vision as peer-to-peer electronic cash. Roger Ver and other prominent BCH supporters pointed to Stripe’s exit as proof that the Bitcoin Core team’s decision to prioritize a settlement layer over a payment network was a strategic error.
The Litecoin community highlighted the $99 million transaction as a real-time demonstration of LTC’s capabilities. Charlie Lee, Litecoin’s creator, had positioned the coin as the complementary payments layer to Bitcoin’s store-of-value proposition — the silver to Bitcoin’s gold.
Ethereum’s community was more focused on the regulatory clouds gathering overhead. Legal scholar Preston Byrne published a detailed analysis on April 23 arguing that Ethereum might qualify as a security under existing frameworks, a claim that would have profound implications for its usability as a payment medium. If regulators classified ETH as a security, payment processors would face additional compliance hurdles.
The Stellar Development Foundation, backed by Stripe’s seed investment, was quietly building partnerships with financial institutions in developing markets. Their approach was less about crypto-native community building and more about enterprise adoption — a strategy that aligned with what payment processors actually needed.
Adoption Metrics
The market data from April 23, 2018 reveals how investors were positioning themselves in response to the Stripe exit:
- Bitcoin Cash (BCH): $24.5B market cap, $1.93B daily volume, +88.19% weekly — the clear market favorite to capture Bitcoin’s payment use cases
- Litecoin (LTC): $8.6B market cap, $376M daily volume, +18.20% weekly — steady accumulation with practical utility demonstrated
- EOS (EOS): $9.4B market cap, $662M daily volume, +39.31% weekly — riding ICO anticipation more than payments narrative
- Stellar (XLM): $6.9B market cap, $57M daily volume, +32.38% weekly — strong weekly gains but lower daily volume suggests less speculative interest
- Monero (XMR): $4.5B market cap, $110M daily volume, +46.44% weekly — privacy-focused alternative gaining traction
Bitcoin itself, at $8,930 with a $151.8 billion market cap and $6.9 billion in daily volume, showed resilience despite the Stripe news. The 1.25% daily gain and 11.28% weekly gain suggested the market was treating Stripe’s exit as a Bitcoin-specific payments issue rather than a broader crypto market crisis.
Notably, the total stablecoin market on this date was relatively small, with Tether at just $2.28 billion market cap. The idea of stablecoin payments — which would eventually become Stripe’s actual path back to crypto — was still in its infancy.
The Final Verdict
Stripe’s exit from Bitcoin on April 23, 2018 was a watershed moment that exposed the growing tension between cryptocurrency as a speculative asset and cryptocurrency as a functional payment system. The altcoins best positioned to benefit were those with the strongest payment-specific narratives and technical capabilities.
Bitcoin Cash had the momentum and the most direct narrative alignment, but its gains were largely speculative and driven by the same trading dynamics that characterized the broader crypto market. Litecoin had the real-world proof points, including the $99 million transaction, but lacked the marketing muscle to capitalize fully. Stellar had Stripe’s backing but needed more time to build its ecosystem.
In hindsight, the most interesting detail from Stripe’s farewell post was not which cryptocurrency they endorsed, but their expression of optimism about the broader space. They mentioned Lightning Network, OmiseGO, Ethereum, Stellar, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin as all holding promise. The real winner, it turned out, would not be any single altcoin but rather the concept of stablecoin payments — a category that barely existed on April 23, 2018, but would eventually bring Stripe back into the crypto fold years later.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Cryptocurrency investments carry significant risk, and readers should conduct their own research before making investment decisions. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
stripe dropping BTC was inevitable. 10 minute block times and 30 dollar fees for a payment processor whose entire model is microtransactions. BCH or LTC were the obvious candidates but neither solved the fundamental throughput issue
50 dollar tx fees killed BTC payments faster than any competitor could have. stripe didnt leave bitcoin, bitcoin left payments
every payment processor that tried crypto in 2014-2018 learned the same lesson. the coins that win are the ones nobody talks about for ideological reasons, stablecoins
Called it perfectly. Every checkout integration in 2026 settles in stables. The ideology debate got settled by accounting departments, quietly.
BCH up 88% the same week stripe dropped BTC payments. the market was betting big on bigger blocks as the payments solution. that aged interestingly
block_size_witness BCH up 88% that week was the market betting on bigger blocks. we all know how that turned out lol
litecoin processing 99M in 2.5 minutes for 40 cents while stripe was paying 15 dollar BTC fees. that comparison alone should have ended the debate about LTC utility
Stripe dropping BTC and seed-funding Stellar in the same breath was the loudest signal of 2018. people argued then, looks obvious now
Bence F. 50 dollar fees and 12 hour confirms vs Stellar at 3 second finality. wasnt even a choice for a payments company
stripe seed-funding stellar while dropping BTC tells you everything about where the smart money saw payments going in 2018
stripe dropping BTC but funding stellar was basically a thesis statement. they wanted fast cheap payments not digital gold
Stripe dropping btc in 2018 looks premature in hindsight but their complaints about confirmation times were legit at the time.
BCH up 88 percent that week aged like milk. bigger blocks was never the answer, L2 was
lightning fixed the fees, stablecoins fixed the volatility. stripe circled back with usdc on base anyway. the 2018 endgame was visible early
Stellar at 37 cents was the real play here. Stripe literally seed-funded them before the pivot.
stellar at 37 cents was the contrarian play. stripe saw the payments writing on the wall before anyone else did
payments_maxi stellar at 37 cents with stripe backing was the contrarian call of 2018. most people laughed at it. some of those people are still holding bags from that cycle
bitcoin fees hitting 50 dollars per tx in dec 2017 is what killed the payments narrative. lightning wasnt ready yet
50 dollar fees and 12 hour confirmations killed BTC payments in 2017. lightning fixed it but stripe had already left by then
fee_rage_ 50 dollar tx fees and 12 hour confirmation times. stripe literally had no choice. their entire business is fast cheap payments and btc was delivering neither
Tomoko S. 12 hour confirms at 50 dollars per tx. stripes checkout flow needs 2 seconds not 2 blocks. they literally couldnt stay
Tomoko S. 50 dollar fees and 12 hour confirms. stripe literally couldnt operate on btc, their whole thing is 2 second checkout. wasnt a choice it was survival
Litecoin at 152 quietly doing what btc couldnt on payments. Not sexy but functional.
Stripe seed-funding Stellar then dropping BTC was the clearest signal of where payments were heading. they saw the fee problem coming a mile away
ran a shop with stripe btc checkout in 2017. fees ate 15 dollars a pop and refunds were chaos because price moved 10% before anyone processed them. dropping it was operations, not ideology
shopkeep_dan the refunds being chaos because price moved 10% before processing is the exact problem stablecoins solved three years later. stripe just picked the wrong stable year