Original | Odaily Planet Daily ( @OdailyChina )
Author | Ethan ( @ethanzhang_web3 )
On April 21, according to the latest news from Catholic News Service Rome , Pope Francis died at 7:35 this morning. The Vatican spokesman, Cardinal Farrell, announced the news. GMGN data shows that the old Pope-themed meme representative LUCE soared 70% in a short period of time, with a market value of over 15 million US dollars, and now fell back to 13.87 million US dollars.
LUCE K-line act first and report later, what did the big investors know in advance?
Previously, on April 19, the price of LUCE tokens plummeted by 74.54% in a single day, and the market value shrank rapidly from tens of millions of dollars. On-chain data showed that an early whale account made a profit of 5.2 million US dollars but did not sell it in time, and eventually lost 335,000 US dollars. On the same day, several meme tokens (such as MANEKI, JELLYJELLY, and AIDOGE) also experienced flash crashes , sparking widespread discussion. After a period of time, the price of LUCE stabilized at around 0.00887 US dollars and was still on the Binance Alpha list.
At 4:07 am on April 19, community contributor Lavanda Garrison said in the official Telegram group that the community takeover team (CTO) has not yet determined the cause of the flash crash and suspected that it might be caused by a large investor selling out.
At 4:42 am on the same day, community member @berly_off pointed out that the time and method of selling LUCE, MANEKI and AIDOGE were very similar, speculating that they may share a market maker; these tokens are listed on large exchanges such as OKX or Bybit, and may enter the market through large-scale selling by market makers. Similar situations have previously occurred with Binance-listed tokens such as ACT and HIPPO.
At 22:47 on the same day, LUCE CTO official X published a statement stating that the cause of the plunge was ultimately attributed to price manipulation caused by whales selling their tokens. Although the token price was hit hard this time, community confidence was not affected.
Until today, LUCE has experienced a secondary reversal.
The Rise and Fall of Holy Light: When Religious Symbols Become Meme-ized
On October 29, 2024, the LUCE token was launched on the Solana chain, inspired by the Vatican’s two-dimensional mascot “Luce” (Italian for “light”) designed for the Holy Year of 2025. This creative combination of religious symbols and subculture quickly attracted public attention.
The Luce mascot was created by renowned designer Simone Legno. Its image combines the symbolic meaning of the Latin word for light with youthful elements: holding a pilgrims staff, with muddy boots and eyes shining with hope, it is intended to attract Generation Z to pay attention to Catholic culture.
The developer (Dev) took advantage of the situation to transform religious sentiment into a capital narrative, created a token with only 2 SOL (about $130), and launched it on the Pump.fun platform. The token supply is 1 billion and fully circulated. The next day, the market value of LUCE soared to $53 million within 12 hours, and the trading volume exceeded $116 million. On-chain data showed that Dev sold 67.06 million LUCE for 2.73 SOL, making a profit of 0.73 SOL (about $130), but the market value of the token had exceeded $2 million at this time, showing signs of early control.
In the following period, LUCE quickly became a dual symbol of religion + wealth. In Telegram groups, the slogan Faith is wealth and the cartoon image of LUCE spread, and even derived companion tokens such as Santino (puppy) and Holy Mary (Virgin Mary), forming a more complete narrative matrix. By November 2024, the price of LUCE rose from US$0.0275 to US$0.07196, with a weekly increase of 65.44%. The market value once exceeded US$77 million, ranking among the top 800 cryptocurrencies by market value.
At that time, market sentiment was high; at the same time, the high performance of the Solana chain became a booster - its low transaction fees (about $0.00025) and high throughput (65,000 transactions per second) enabled retail investors to trade frequently; and the Pump.fun platform simplified the token issuance process, allowing Dev to list new coins in a few minutes. Data shows that in 2024, more than 3,000 meme coins will be born on the Solana chain every day, of which 70% are created through Pump.fun, with an average life cycle of only 3 days.
LUCEs relative longevity is due to its unique religious narrative - the global exposure of the Vatican Holy Year activities has provided it with a continuous topic. At the same time, the community is extremely active, and members have even created a pilgrimage route map that ties token price fluctuations to the countdown to the Holy Year, claiming that when the Holy Light shines in 2025, holders will receive a tenfold return, further increasing the popularity of LUCE.
Looking back, the rise and fall of Meme, with LUCE as a typical microcosm, reflects the narrative-driven pursuit of capital, the double-edged effect of community consensus, and the fueling of infrastructure.
Fast forward to today, the news of the Popes death has quickly spawned a new batch of meme coins. In addition to the coin with the same name, there are also new coins that mock US Vice President JD Vance as the Pope Killer angle to capture popularity and liquidity (Note: Vance met with the Pope yesterday and wished the Pope good health on the X).
It is sad that Meme is still Meme, with no boundaries, consuming everything and capitalizing all attention.
