Luce (LUCE): The Vibrant Mascot With a Holy Mission
All through 2024, Solana-based meme coins have experienced phenomenal growth within short time periods. In a similar fashion, the latest addition to the Solana family, LUCE, has quickly surged in price, thanks to its innovative merging of traditional Catholic values with pop culture.
Within two days of its listing, the Catholic Church–inspired meme coin had achieved a market cap of over $80 million, making it one of the largest coins created by Pump.fun.
With barely a month in the market, LUCE has made significant returns for its early adoptors.
Let’s learn more about LUCE and why it’s become so popular.
Key Takeaways:
LUCE is a church-themed Solan-based meme coin that’s designed after the official mascot of the Catholic Church to celebrate the Holy Year 2025.
The coin has amassed a large following barely one month after launch, and now ranks among the top 8 tokens on Pump.fun.
LUCE is available on Bybit both for Spot trading, and as a Perpetual contract in the Innovation Zone.
What Is the LUCE Crypto Token?
LUCE is a Solana-based meme coin that’s inspired by the anime-style mascot of the upcoming Holy Year of the Catholic Church in 2025, also known as the Jubilee year. Luce, which means “light” in Italian and symbolizes hope, is designated as the mascot by the Vatican.
The token, created on Pump.fun, was designed by Japanese lifestyle brand tokidoki’s co-founder, Simone Legno. LUCE’s design cleverly merges elusive symbols used by the Catholic church with the modernity of pop culture.
As one of the pioneers of church-themed meme coins, LUCE has garnered a colossal following within a few weeks after launch.
The Story Behind the LUCE Token
On Oct 28, 2024, the Vatican unveiled a raincoat-clad, anime-themed mascot to celebrate the Catholic church’s upcoming Jubilee celebration in 2025. Thereafter, crypto enthusiasts quickly created the LUCE token, basing on the Vatican's mascot, Luce.
The creation of the LUCE token exemplifies the intersection of traditional institutions and modern digital culture, highlighting the way religious symbolism can be used to inspire new forms of digital assets and community engagement within the cryptocurrency space.
Luce cleverly blends various aspects of the Catholic church. Its mascot is depicted with a rosary around its neck, holding a bordone (walking stick) to symbolize the pilgrim. Additionally, its muddy boots were specifically designed to signify humility through the journey of life.
The brand behind the LUCE token is tokidoki, a popular platform that features and sells Japanese-inspired products such as accessories, apparel, toys, cosmetics and fine art. tokidoki has acquired a vast online following around the world, especially among youth who connect to its fun and creative pop culture.
LUCE has a striking resemblance to another popular Japanese-inspired NFT collection, Milady Maker, which has also created a huge following in the crypto space.
The Rise of the LUCE token
Following its launch at the end of October 2024, LUCE immediately gained traction and made quick gains for its early investors.
Within two days of its debut, LUCE's market cap had reached $80 million, attracting over 17,000 holders and becoming a trending topic on social media platforms. Within a few weeks, early investors have seen substantial returns. For instance, one investor purchased 10 million LUCE tokens for 60 SOL (approximately $10,400) on Oct 29, 2024, which later appreciated to a value of $666,000 in one day's time — a 64-fold increase.
On Nov 12, 2024, LUCE rapidly crossed the $100 million market cap mark within 24 hours, making the token one of the biggest on Pump.fun. Luce's potential led to Bybit listing the meme coin as a Perpetual contract with a leverage of 12.5x in its Innovation Zone on Nov 19, 2024.
Source: X
Shortly after this Perpetual contract trading announcement, Bybit announced that LUCE would join ByVotes, a product that lets its users cast votes on which tokens to list in Bybit's Spot trading terminal. The token received over 305 million votes through ByVotes, and those who successfully voted got to share in the 1,155,386 LUCE prize pool.
As of Dec 9, 2024, LUCE's price is $0.15, with a market cap of $122.12 million, placing it among the top 8 meme coins on Pump.fun. In the past 30 days, LUCE has pumped by over 500%, with a slight decline of around 10% in the past 24 hours.
Where to Buy the LUCE Token
You can buy LUCE on Bybit as both a Perpetual contract (LUCEUSDT) and on its Spot trading terminal (LUCE/USDT) under the Innovation Zone, a platform that allows investors early access to projects handpicked by the Bybit team. However, these projects also pose the added risk of higher volatility, which can adversely impact investments.
Closing Thoughts
The rapid rise of the LUCE token highlights the dynamic nature of the crypto market, and the potential for significant gains, as well as the inherent risks associated with such investments. As a top church-themed meme coin, LUCE has created an impressive following that could make it one of the largest tokens on Solana’s Pump.fun and in the broader cryptocurrency community.
As the Holy Year draws to a close, LUCE remains an emerging token with an upward trajectory due to its community spirit, fun design and religious significance via its embodiment of values central to the Catholic Church.
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