Crypto market sees regulatory relief, ETF boost — key coins to watch this week

Over the weekend, the cryptocurrency market experienced significant developments and price movements. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) formally dismissed its enforcement actions against Kraken, Consensys, and Cumberland DRW, signaling a notable shift in the regulatory landscape that could ease operational constraints for these entities.

In parallel, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) announced a reversal of its prior policy that required banks to obtain approval before engaging in cryptocurrency-related activities. This change is anticipated to encourage greater involvement of traditional financial institutions in the crypto sector, potentially leading to the introduction of new crypto-related products and services.

In the financial products arena, HashKey Group and Bosera Asset Management revealed plans to launch tokenised shares of two existing money market ETFs as part of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s Project Ensemble.

Bitcoin (BTC) began the weekend trading around $83,800. Coinswitch market desk commentary says a sudden market-wide downturn led to a decline of more than 2%, bringing BTC to a low of approximately $81,400 and erasing gains from earlier in the week.

The broader cryptocurrency market also declined, with significant losses observed in cryptocurrencies such as Avalanche (AVAX), Polygon (POL), Near (NEAR), and Uniswap (UNI). Meanwhile, the S&P 500 declined 1.97% to close at 5580.94 as Trump is set to roll out more tariffs with effect from 2nd April.

Here’s a quick snapshot of cryptocurrencies to watch this week:

Solana: Solana (SOL), a highly scalable blockchain platform, is trading 1.29% lower at $124.70, with a market cap of $63.9 billion. It could be in the spotlight this week, as the token continues to trade above the key support level of $119.5 — a threshold it has consistently avoided breaching. A drop below this level would confirm a bearish trend, while sustained momentum could indicate potential upside. Solana has declined 14.95% over the past month, with a 7-day drop of 10.13%.

Solana is designed to facilitate decentralized app (dApp) development and support cryptocurrency transactions. After the launch of SOL in March 2020, SOL's price bounced between $0.50 and $1.50 for the rest of the year. Then, SOL became one of the top-performing assets amid the crypto bull run in 2021, as its price hit $55.91 by May 2021. Though it dipped to as low as $23.49 in July 2021, SOL's price surged again in the second half of the year, hitting its all-time high of $258.93 in November 2021.

Cronos: Cronos (CRO), earlier known as Crypto.com, is trading 7.48% down in the 24 hours at $0.09937, while it has recorded 34% growth in the past month. CRO has broken from a falling wedge pattern after several months of consolidation within a demand zone, which has increased interest among investors, as per Cryptonewsland. Market analysts say further downside is unlikely as the utility token's price has remained stable within the $0.06744–$0.09 demand zone.

Cronos has seen a rebound following Crypto.com Coin's tie-up with Donald Trump’s Trump Media on ETF offerings. Additionally, the community approved the minting of 70 billion additional CRO tokens to establish a "Strategic Crypto Reserve", a move that has generated interest among investors.

Built on Ethermint, which is based on the Cosmos SDK, Cronos supports the rapid porting of DApps and smart contracts from Ethereum and other EVM-compatible chains, as well as interoperability with the Cosmos ecosystem via IBC (Inter Blockchain Communication).

Polkadot: Polkadot, which is currently trading around a crucial support level of $4.02, down 2.36% in the past 24 hours, will be closely watched this week. The crypto protocol has fallen 7% and 15% in the past 7 days and 30 days, but it has sustained momentum above the key support point at $3.60. Launched in May 2020 by Gavin Wood, Polkadot is a standard open-source shared multichain protocol, which enhances blockchain interoperability. The company's new parachains network allows multiple blockchains to run simultaneously while sharing data securely.