Early on Monday, Solana (SOL) is making cautious gains as its price approaches the key $200 level, which could be broken as long as the sentiment holds in the positive region as it enjoys the support of several strong fundamentals to power investor confidence. At the time of writing, SOL/USD is trading at around $197.38.

The fifth largest crypto by market cap has been earning praises by several experts lately who have listed it as one of the top performers of 2021. According to data on Messari, Solana has strengthened by around 15,000%, on the back of rising adoption of its ecosystem by dApps, thanks to its high throughput. Some experts and analysts have also forecast that the SOL token has the potential to outperform and possibly overtake ETH in the coming year as long as it can sustain the high rate of adoption in the future.

In terms of fundamentals, the Solana crypto could enjoy support from the launch of Mini Royale: Nations, the network’s first multiplayer game which went live recently and has already seen the number of players double in the short span. Unlike several players in the crypto gaming space, Mini Royale is not a P2E offering, but lets users leverage NFTs as in-game avatars and receive benefits. Its NFTs have already generated sales worth over $3.2 million on the Magic Eden marketplace.

The SOL token could see its value rise higher following the Solana Foundation’s confirmation that its blockchain has achieved the status of being carbon neutral before the end of this year. According to Executive Director at the foundation, Dan Albert, “We’re dedicated to keeping the Solana ecosystem as environmentally friendly as possible. Our carbon neutrality initiatives, paired with Solana’s high-performance, energy-efficient design, means the community can build a sustainable web3 future for many years to come.”

However, there could be some trouble in the near term for Solana over news of possible hacks via Discord. Last week, Solana-based NFT marketplace Fractal saw its Discord server being compromised, leading to hackers using a malicious link advertising NFT Airdrops. Clicking on the link caused users to lose SOL tokens, with estimates pegging the loss to be as high as 862 SOL (valued at over $150,000). The hack also affected another NFT project on Solana, Monkey Kingdom, which resulted in the loss of $1.3 million from its crypto funds via a security breach on Discord. The news of these hacks could keep investors away from SOL.

SOL/USD Technical Analysis

Taking a look at the H4 chart of SOL/USD, we find a strong bullish bias being exhibited by moving averages and the MACD. However, the momentum indicator suggests some interest among sellers in the market as well.

Solana’s price sits above the pivot point at $189.02, although the immediate resistance is some distance away at $209.56. We need to see buyers break past the obstacle at $200 for a test of this resistance.