Vatican-themed memecoin LUCE rises 100% after Pope Francis' death

LUCE, a Vatican-themed memecoin, saw its value rise more than 100% today after the Catholic Church announced the death of Pope Francis.

The value of LUCE, a Vatican-themed memecoin, soared more than 100% today after the Catholic Church announced the death of Pope Francis. The token, which launched in 2024, had seen its value drop by more than half before the latest resurgence.

According to data from CoinMarketCap, the LUCE token, inspired by the Catholic Church’s official mascot for the 2025 Jubilee event, went from as low as $0.00892 to reach $0.02711. Although it has now seen a correction, LUCE is still trading at $0.014.

LUCE memecoin launched during the memecoin season in October 2024, just hours after the Catholic Church announced that it would be the mascot for its once-in-25-years Holy Year Celebration. However, it has struggled for most of 2025 as interest in memecoins faded.

Its positive performance highlights how memecoin traders reacted to the attention the coin received upon the news of Pope Francis’ death. The Pope died after a long fight with pneumonia that saw him spend 38 days in the hospital.

However, he was already showing signs of recovery and made his first public appearance on Easter Sunday while also meeting with the US Vice President, JD Vance.

Memecoin traders capitalize on tragic news

While Catholics globally are mourning the death of the religious leader, memecoin traders seem to have capitalized on that moment to trade LUCE memecoin. According to CoinMarketCap data, the token has generated almost $50 million in trading volume over the last 24 hours, a 515% increase.

The massive trading interest, along with the rise in value, has also enabled LUCE’s market cap to reach $14 million, even though it was below $10 million the previous day.

Unsurprisingly, LUCE is not the only Catholic-inspired memecoin that performed well in the last 24 hours. In fact, traders have also launched several other memecoins based on the incident, and a quick search for “POPE” or “FRANCIS” on Dexscreener will show multiple microcap tokens. One of these tokens, FRANCIS is up 217% in the last 24 hours.

LUCE down more than 50% despite gains

Despite its recent positive performance, LUCE is actually performing well below its peak price of $0.3272 from November 2024. The token attracted significant attention in late 2024 and even got a perpetual contract listing on exchanges, including Bybit.

Its performance at the time allowed many to make significant profits on the token at the time. According to Lookonchain, one address spent $10,000 worth of SOL to buy 10 million LUCE tokens and recorded over $666,000 in profits.

However, traders losing interest in memecoins over the past few months has hurt LUCE significantly. The token is down more than 40% in the last seven days and 63% year to date, while trading 95% below its all-time high price.

Interestingly, one long-term holder suffered a sizable loss on the token a few days ago. Lookonchain reported that the trader had as much as $5.2 million in profit on the token at its peak after buying 19.14 million LUCE tokens for $0.0275 six months ago. However, they held on to it and suffered $335,000 in losses after the token crashed 70%.

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