The meme craze triggered by the hype of room temperature superconductors: is it innovation or "cutting new"

Author: André Beganski, Decrypt; Compiler: Felix, PANews

Excitement over superconductivity has captured the imagination of the scientific community and its crypto-related Decentralized Science (DeSci) movement following the discovery of a “room temperature superconductor” called LK-99. Unsurprisingly, as with other heavily hyped topics, many Memecoins have emerged.

LK-99 is the name of a material that reportedly exhibits “superconductivity” at temperatures as high as 400K (127°C), discovered last month by a team of South Korean scientists. While other scientists are trying to reproduce the paper’s results, this could be a big deal for humanity. This so-called advance could usher in a new era of technological innovation: one that could revolutionize battery storage, boost nuclear fusion and enable quantum computers on a massive scale.

However, these details may not be that important to crypto Degens. The recent community fascination with on-chain hamster racing games (eg HAMS, JIM) has now spawned several LK-99 themed Meme tokens that are tradable on the DEX.

As the potentially world-shaping effects of LK-99 unfolded, it was no surprise that someone ran to the blockchain and deployed a similarly named meme token. In fact, at least a few people did.

“LK-99,” “Superconductivity,” and “LK-99 Protocol” are three examples of superconductor-themed meme coins that have been rising since their launch. Magnetic levitation is considered a hallmark property of superconductors, known as the “Meissner effect”. Each token has the same name: LK99. But each token is distributed on different networks and DEXs, such as Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain (BSC) or Arbitrum, the Ethereum Layer 2 scaling solution.

“LK-99,” traded on decentralized exchange Pancakeswap, is up 46% in the past day, with roughly $1 million in volume. Of the three Memecoins, “LK-99” is the latest, launching on August 5th.

“Superconductivity,” traded on Arbitrum-based Uniswap V3, launched on August 1st. The smallest of the batch of memecoins, with a market cap of $52,000, the token is up 36% over the past day with a volume of $45,000.

The “LK-99 Protocol” was launched on August 1st on the Ethereum-based decentralized exchange Uniswap V2. After launch, the protocol climbed to $0.01, with a market capitalization of $1.7 million, according to CoinGecko’s Gecko Terminal data.

Superconductors seem unlikely to be considered a meme-worthy field. Tokens like Dogecoin and Pepe have reached incredible heights thanks to their origins in internet pop culture. In the field of superconductivity, though, the idea of materials that allow electrons to flow with zero resistance and generate no heat does sound somewhat exciting. But the discovery of room-temperature superconductors like LK-99 has failed to withstand testing in the past. At present, the Korea Superconducting and Low Temperature Society has issued a statement that there is not enough evidence to prove that “LK-99” is a room temperature superconductor. As for whether LK-99 will achieve room temperature superconductivity in the future, it remains to be verified. Therefore, when the LK-99 in the scientific community seems to be unable to independently reproduce, the value of Memecoin seems to be coming to an end.

Memecoin is highly volatile, and users should pay attention to risks. The superconducting Meme tokens mentioned above do not constitute investment advice, DYOR. After all, cases of meme coins collapsing abound. Last week, “BALD” attracted a wave of market attention, but its collapse was as violent as the initial surge.