The Vatican, the center of the TIAN main JIAO faith, recently announced the launch of a two-dimensional mascot Luce, hoping to leverage popular anime culture as a commemoration for the 2025 'Holy Year' and to promote the Catholic faith among young people.
What is Luce? What are its characteristics?
It is understood that Luce was designed by Simone Legno, founder of Tokidoki and Italian artist, and its name means 'light'. Meanwhile, Archbishop Fisichella stated that the inspiration for Luce comes from the Church's expectations, as they hope that the culture of the Church can endure among young people.
With the launch of Luce, the Vatican has also specially released a dynamic video about Luce, explaining the design of the Luce character, which includes various elements and symbols from the Church: Luce holds a pilgrim's staff, her boots are muddy representing the hardships of the journey, and her shining eyes represent hope…
The meme coin named after Luce is on fire
After the launch of Luce, not only did its two-dimensional character cause a sensation in various communities, but this trend also inevitably swept through the cryptocurrency field.
According to Dex Screener data, after the release of Luce, the meme coin LUCE, named after it, was also deployed on the Solana chain on October 29. Perhaps investors believe that Luce, as the mascot of the Catholic Holy Year, has a global base of over one billion believers, and the LUCE token surged after its launch, with a market cap once exceeding $77 million (as of the time of writing, it has fallen back to $60 million).
At the same time, during the rise of LUCE, many investors who entered early have collected profits of dozens of times, for example:
According to monitoring by @ai_9684xtpa, investors who traded 755 meme coins within a month, initially spent 37.62 SOL to purchase 22.51 million LUCE, and after clearing their positions in batches, they accumulated a return of $293,000, achieving a return rate of 4459%.
According to monitoring by Lookonchain, a certain wallet initially spent 60 SOL to purchase 10 million LUCE, which is now worth $666,000, achieving a 64-fold return on investment.
However, although LUCE is currently still at a high point, Dongqu reminds that LUCE is not an officially issued cryptocurrency by the Catholic Church, and meme coins themselves have strong volatility, so investors should remain cautious.
