One Missed Trade, $36 Million Lost: How TROLL Became Solana's Meme Coin Jackpo
A Solana trader missed a $36M payday after selling a meme coin too soon. Here’s what happened.
In the unpredictable world of meme coin trading, fortunes are often made—or lost—on impulse decisions. Such is the cautionary tale of Leland King Fawcette, a developer and trader who inadvertently walked away from what would become a $36 million windfall.
Back in August 2024, Fawcette purchased $1,300 worth of TROLL, a Solana-based meme coin he himself had helped bundle and circulate. His intention was not necessarily to profit but to satirize the speculative nature of meme coin culture. "I wanted to shill a meme coin to a KOL... just to see if any KOL was dumb enough to do it," he admitted in a recent interview. When only one key opinion leader (KOL) engaged, Fawcette sold off his holdings for a modest gain of 9 SOL and moved on.
At the time of his sale, TROLL had a market cap of just $9,360. What followed over the next year was a meteoric rise. After months of dormancy, the token surged by more than 174,000% in April 2025, peaking briefly at $42 million. The rise was partly fueled by social media buzz and the community's embrace of the meme culture surrounding Trollface. Even a competing token endorsed by the meme's original creator, Carlos Ramirez (aka Saint Whynne), couldn't sustain traction and eventually collapsed.
By late July, TROLL experienced another explosive rally, soaring 924% in just ten days and reaching an all-time high market cap of $166 million. It currently sits at around $158 million—making it the 9th-largest token on the Pump.fun platform and the 39th-largest meme coin globally.
Had Fawcette held onto his position, his initial $1,300 investment would now be worth over $36 million, reflecting a staggering 2,769,131% return. Yet, he remains unfazed. "It doesn’t hurt... there was no indication that the coin was going to run," he said. To him, it was just another meme coin among millions launched on Pump.fun, which has seen over 12 million meme tokens created since January 2024.
Fawcette’s story underscores the volatile and often absurd nature of crypto’s meme economy. In an environment where overnight gains are possible but unpredictable, his experience is both a missed opportunity and a reminder: in the meme coin casino, timing is everything.
