// KOTAKU — GAMING
Bethesda Is Taking Legal Action Against Doom-Themed Memecoin Promoted By Former Doom Designer
On August 3, well-known Doom designer (and frequent social media sparring partner of John Romero) Sandy Petersen posted a video on his X account of himself in a Doom T-shirt at a PC with a link to his profile on crypto trading site Fomo. “I’m thoroughly part of the community,” he wrote. “We can build this together.” In his video, he showed himself purchasing a token of the new “$DOOM” memecoin for over $187. In the replies, people responded with everything from utter glee to concern for Petersen’s wellbeing.
I'm thoroughly part of the community. We can build this together.
I just bought on @fomo. https://t.co/kpRdF9BV9o$DOOM Gymbmn9wwMKe4NnmVceyyfpncp9arbwPfSdBsyY9pump pic.twitter.com/PwbgPUKq6T
— Sandy Petersen 🪔 (@SandyofCthulhu) August 4, 2026
Later that day, he posted another video of himself putting in an additional $1000 into the token. Then still the same day, he posted a video and a link to a website where users can play a version of Doom in their browser…and earn Sol, the native cryptocurrency for the blockchain platform Solana. He continued promoting the coin and the game, called Doomsol, for the next several days, at one point claiming the game had thousands of players.
Gymbmn9wwMKe4NnmVceyyfpncp9arbwPfSdBsyY9pump pic.twitter.com/H8A5Zmojxe
— Sandy Petersen 🪔 (@SandyofCthulhu) August 4, 2026
Petersen’s exact role in both the $DOOM memecoin and Doomsol is a bit fuzzy, but based on his posts he seems to at minimum be involved in designing Doom levels for Doomsol and promoting the coin on his socials. His son, Arthur Petersen, also appears to be heavily involved, and at one point reshared a post from a crypto-promoting X user named @ALPHACALLEREMRE recapping an X Space (a live conversation that took place on X) saying that Sandy Petersen was “receiving fees” and “being paid very well” for making new Doom levels for Doomsol. They added that “This is SANDY retirement coin due to not being paid as well as he should’ve at doom.”
Petersen is well-known and liked by many in the Doom community thanks to his level contributions to both Doom 1 and 2, as well as Quake. He’s a prolific poster and frequently engages with fans, but this turn into crypto struck a lot of individuals as very, very odd. It would have been strange enough for Petersen to suddenly pivot to promotion of a memecoin, but on top of that, there were elements that didn’t add up. For instance, this video he posted of himself allegedly playing Doomsol. This isn’t Doomsol. It’s Freedoom, a totally separate fan project, whose use in this video prompted the official Freedoom account to comment and make clear that it had nothing to do with whatever Petersen was plugging here. “We don’t endorse cryptocurrency scams and recommend people stay away from them,” the account wrote.
And indeed, almost immediately, whoever created the coin pulled the rug. As the price of the coin tanked, Petersen abruptly stopped posting about either $DOOM or Doomsol entirely. He began mentioning it again on socials at the end of August amid what seemed to be an attempt by several individuals claiming to be working on Doomsol to rally and repromote the game and the coin after its original creator bailed, but despite a brief jump, the coin’s value never reached its original highs, and both Petersens almost immediately fell silent about it once again.