The current passing of Pope Francis shocked the world, nevertheless it additionally triggered an surprising monetary ripple. $LUCE, a Solana-based meme token tied to the Vatican’s Holy Yr 2025 mascot, surged 80%, reaching a $14.7M market cap. This phenomenon highlights the rising intersection of popular culture and cryptocurrency markets.
The Stunning Occasion That Despatched $LUCE Surging
The sudden 80% surge of LUCE, a meme token on the Solana blockchain associated to the mascot of the holy 12 months, may be traced to a major international occasion: the passing of Pope Francis at age 88, as reported by the BBC on April 21, 2025.
The Vatican introduced the information, revealing that the Pope had handed away after his 38-day hospitalization earlier within the 12 months. His dying despatched shockwaves by means of the Catholic group and past. Whereas the world mourned, the crypto market reacted swiftly, with $LUCE—a token impressed by the Vatican’s 2025 Jubilee Yr mascot—experiencing a dramatic price enhance.
Supply: DEXScreener
$LUCE, the official Holy Yr mascot symbolizing hope, actively engages youthful audiences by means of popular culture. Moreover, $LUCE was beforehand listed on Binance Alpha Market. Following the information, its market cap soared to $14.7M, reflecting the crypto market’s sensitivity to real-world occasions.
This spike aligns with the unstable nature of meme cash, which regularly thrive on hype and sentiment somewhat than intrinsic worth. The emotional resonance of Pope Francis’ passing, mixed with $LUCE’s symbolic connection to the Vatican, created an ideal storm for speculative buying and selling, driving its worth upward.
How Pop Tradition Is Secretly Taking Over Crypto
The $LUCE surge is a transparent instance of how popular culture more and more influences the crypto market, a pattern that has been rising lately. Meme cash like $LUCE, which draw inspiration from cultural phenomena, exemplify this intersection. In line with a 2024 report by BlockApps Inc., meme cash blur the strains between web humor, group sentiment, and monetary hypothesis, typically pushed by viral tendencies and on-line communities. Nevertheless, the unintended consequence was the creation of a meme token that capitalized on this cultural image, displaying how rapidly popular culture can infiltrate monetary markets.
The intersection of popular culture and cryptocurrency has led to a number of notable market surges, just like $LUCE’s 80% spike following Pope Francis’ passing in April 2025. An instance is Dogecoin DOGE, which started as a 2013 joke impressed by the “Doge” meme however soared in 2021 attributable to Elon Musk’s endorsements. Musk’s tweets, like one in January 2021 captioned “Doge,” triggered a 20% price soar inside minutes, propelling Dogecoin to a peak of $0.73 and a $90 billion market cap by Might.
Supply: TradingView
One other case is Shiba Inu SHIB, launched in 2020 as a “Dogecoin killer.” It leveraged the identical Shiba Inu meme tradition and viral social media hype on platforms like Reddit, ultimately reaching a $39 billion market cap in October 2021. These instances, like $LUCE, present how cultural phenomena—whether or not memes or celeb affect—can drive speculative crypto booms.