Although Bitcoin is likely to keep climbing in the long run, and is currently just below its all-time high, sitting at $104,229, for new entrants, the upside is still limited. Likewise, after the news that the SEC will be changing to a new pro-crypto cabinet, XRP has soared by around 450% since the election.

Bitcoin Hits $105K, But Is The Ceiling Near?

Just as history predicted, Bitcoin entered a new bull run after the BTC halving in 2024. The new US government has been a big factor in this as well, with Trump legitimizing crypto and encouraging ordinary people to use DeFi and cryptocurrencies.

While BTC has been struggling to maintain the $100K psychological threshold, in recent days it has broken through. $103,250 is now a key resistance level that may change to support if Bitcoin can consecutively close above this level.

BTC is currently trading at $104,229, down slightly from its Monday high of $105,815, and some expect a temporary pullback. But how large and for how long? This remains to be seen.

With over 60% of Binance users currently shorting Bitcoin, now is not the time for taking action in BTC, but rather waiting and seeing which way the market will go.

While BTC may go as high as $200k-$500k later on this bull cycle, there might be greater returns from other, newer assets.

Ripple’s Victory In Sight? All Eyes On The SEC

XRP has been a sleeping giant of the crypto world, battling the SEC for years.

As pro-crypto Paul Atkins is ready to take over from SEC Chair Gensler in January, there is a lot of anticipation about whether the SEC will continue its appeal against Ripple’s court win, by the January 15th deadline.

However, everything currently hinges on the position of anti-crypto SEC Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw. A reappointment vote is due on Wednesday, and if things go the right way, the Republicans may gain a majority within the SEC. This would mean that the appeal against XRP would be dropped. If not, Bob Mason predicts that XRP could see a slide back to $1.

In other news, XRP fans were disappointed to learn that Ripple’s upcoming RLUSD stablecoin is currently trading over the $1 peg at $1.23.

The Ripple team informed people on X that the market would shortly stabilize and not invest in RLUSD at the current price.

What’s Next For Crypto And DeFi?

While Bitcoin is the foundation of crypto, XRP, now the third biggest crypto by market cap, is one of the first DeFi coins.

While Ripple has suffered from regulatory setbacks over the years and is only now reaching its full potential, other DeFi coins have seen tremendous amounts of success over the years and in 2024, including blue chip borrowing and lending platform Aave.

This is likely to continue under the Trump administration, with Donald Trump and his family associated with the ‘Be DeFiant’ World Liberty Financial project.

This project aims to involve people in the future of DeFi by voting on proposals and potentially offering exclusive partnerships for WLFI holders.

Can Elluminex Unlock TON’s DeFi Potential?

Elluminex, a new project has a similar aim – to facilitate DeFi on one of crypto’s most potential-filled blockchains – TON.

As TON is built on Telegram, it has the potential to introduce Telegram’s 950M user base to crypto. But in order for that to be successful, the TON user experience has to improve.

Right now using TON for DeFi feels like using DeFi in 2021. Although this 2021 DeFi summer saw many new users coming to DeFi, things were hard to find and understand, and most users relied on word of mouth to figure out where to swap, stake, and receive high yields on their crypto.

Elluminex is planning to change that, as it is building a fully fledged DeFi ecosystem, with all the tools people could need, in one easy-to-use place – and with a slick UI.

Users of Elluminex will be able to avail of the DEX’s advanced functionality to aggregate and bring new liquidity to TON, making swaps easy and cheap, and increasing the ease of trading on TON.

Crucially, Elluminex will also help people to move their money on and off TON via their cross-chain bridge, something which is currently very confusing to do.

With many more useful features in the works including an AI-powered portfolio tracker and a learning portal, Elluminex will be a complete DeFi solution for anyone wanting to get deeper into TON.

As the ELX presale is about to launch, the potential for gains could be similar to getting in on BTC or XRP when they were much newer.

For more information about Elluminex (ELX) visit the links below:

Website:
 https://elluminex.com/ Twitter/X: https://x.com/elluminex Telegram: https://t.me/Elluminex

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