Vatican-themed memecoin LUCE stuns markets with a 100% surge

Inspired by Jubilee mascot “Luce,” the coin briefly traded at $0.01856, with its trading volume exploding 400% to $42.7 million.

Vatican-themed memecoin LUCE has stunned markets with a 101.13% surge on Monday, following the official announcement of Pope Francis’s death on April 21st.

Inspired by Jubilee mascot “Luce,” the coin briefly traded at $0.1856, with its trading volume exploding 413% to $42.7 million, according to CoinMarketCap. The market cap soared past $14.7 million as traders drew a symbolic connection to the Holy Year of 2025 and the unique blend of religion and crypto culture.

The original Luce mascot (Italian for ‘light’) by Simone Legno, co-founder of the Italian pop culture brand tokidoki. As per Vatican Archbishop Rino Fisichella, Luce is part of the Vatican’s effort to interact with ‘the pop culture loved by young people.

Inspired by this initiative, developers launched the LUCE memecoin on Solana’s Pump.Fun platform earlier in 2024. LUCE initially saw viral hype, hitting a market cap of nearly $53M within hours of launch. The coin then crashed 75% from its peak, making this rebound even more dramatic.

The reason behind the sudden fall is also shrouded in mystery. While on-chain data appears calm, with no signs of rug pulls or insider selling, observers pointed to large leveraged long positions on Bybit potentially playing a role in the prior volatility.

“The main volume went through Bybit Futures, where they allowed cross-margin trading for this token with up to 12.5x leverage,” noted one user. However, savvy traders who knew the liquidation price allegedly countered with shorts, driving the price down and liquidating the longs.

As LUCE rallies on emotional and cultural cues, industry analysts caution investors against mistaking short-term price action for long-term value.

They warn against mistaking event-driven hype for sustainable value, noting LUCE lacks utility and could mirror past meme coin boom-and-bust cycles. Very high volatility remains very likely.

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