The team supporting Solana meme coin TROLL has signed a six-figure deal with the creator of the vintage internet meme it’s based on: Trollface. The copyright license agreement gives the meme coin project IP rights to use the iconic meme in its coin-related images, memes, and merchandise. The agreement between Carlos Ramirez, the Trollface artist, and the meme coin community takeover team, Troll Network Limited, is an exclusive and worldwide license within the crypto and meme coin space, a source familiar with the deal told Decrypt.
There’s one exception to the exclusivity, however: another meme coin that Ramirez created and earned royalties from in the past, although he does not officially endorse it. Ramirez will also earn an 11% royalty fee on net revenue produced by any future TROLL meme coin merchandise.
This is a pivotal moment for us. Owning TROLL isn’t just owning another meme coin now—it’s owning history, one of the internet’s most legendary memes. It’s actual tokenized internet culture,” pseudonymous community takeover lead Seal told Decrypt. “Trollface helped memes evolve from internet jokes into mainstream cultural symbols. Without it, we might not be trading them.”
The Microsoft Paint-drawn disfigured smiley face known as Trollface traces its origins back to 2008, when the Oakland-based Ramirez posted a webcomic about using 4chan. It then grew to become a cornerstone of early internet culture, becoming a synonymous symbol of infuriating someone online—or “trolling” them. As a result, Ramirez registered Trollface in the U.S. Copyright Office in 2011, and the artist started earning from the meme via licensing fees, settlements, and other payouts.
During the meme’s peak virality, the artist would receive $10,000 to $15,000 every few months thanks to Trollface-branded t-shirts selling at Hot Topic, he told Kotaku in 2015. Notably, the artist had an endless runner game that featured several internet memes, called Meme Run, pulled from the Wii U eShop because it used his artwork.
Over four years, from 2011 to 2015, Ramirez said he had earned $100,000 as a result of holding the copyright to the Trollface meme. The latest deal with the TROLL meme coin is in excess of that figure. “Agreements like this are crucial for a meme coin project because they lock down the legal rights to the core artwork,” Ariel Givner, who acted as legal counsel for the meme coin project, told Decrypt.
“Having an exclusive license ensures the project can actually enforce its brand and protect its community from copycats or unauthorized commercial use,” she added. “It’s a shield against dilution of the brand and helps investors, exchanges, and partners know the project is operating on a solid legal footing.” Meme coin teams have found themselves in hot water in the past for using copyrighted works in their branding.
The Shark Cat meme coin, which peaked at a $384 million market cap last year, faced legal threats from the owner of the internet-famous cat it was based on. Fortunately, though, the cat owners and meme coin team were able to agree upon a similar IP licensing agreement without the need for a legal battle. Similarly, in 2024, the creator of the Keyboard Cat meme signed a licensing agreement with two previously unofficial meme coins on Solana and Coinbase’s Ethereum layer-2 network Base, avoiding potential litigation.
