Top 3 Coins to Watch Next Week: These Altcoins Could Explode

The crypto market is finishing a rough week. Bitcoin sits at $82,768 after a 2.2% weekly dip, Ethereum is down 7.1% to $2,493, and Solana, XRP and BNB are all nursing losses between 2% and 8%. Twelve of the top 17 coins by market cap closed the week in the red.

That makes the exceptions stand out. NEAR Protocol and Cardano were the only two large caps to post a weekly gain, and Zcash is still the second-best performer of 2026 in the top 20, despite a pullback. When the whole market sells off and a handful of coins refuse to follow, that relative strength is often where the next leg up starts.

Here are the three coins to watch next week, with their current stats and the catalysts that could send them higher. Live prices for every coin in this article are on the CryptoTicker crypto prices page.

Stats as of Saturday, 10 October 2026.

Why Is NEAR Protocol the Top Coin to Watch Next Week?

$NEAR is the strongest coin in the top 20 right now, full stop. It gained 7.98% in the last 24 hours and 11.63% over the week while almost everything else bled, and it is up 245% year to date. At $5.22 it has climbed from under $2 in early September, one of the most explosive monthly moves in its history.

The difference between NEAR and most momentum plays is that this rally has a real spot buyer behind it. Bitwise launched the first spot NEAR ETF in the US (ticker NRR) at the start of October, and the fund pulled in roughly $58 million in its first week. ETF creations require actual NEAR purchases, so every inflow day tightens the float. Add the growth of NEAR Intents, the chain abstraction layer that routes cross-chain swaps, and the AI narrative that keeps dragging capital toward NEAR, and you have a story that institutions can actually buy.