Crypto logos and trademarks: the basics

A wallet shows the ETH logo next to a balance. An exchange lists hundreds of trading pairs, each with two token icons. A bridge puts eight chain logos on its landing page. All of these use marks that belong to someone else, and most of the time nobody thinks twice about it. This guide explains what is going on when you put a crypto logo in your product, so you can tell routine use from the kind that deserves a permission email.

This is general information, not legal advice. Trademark law differs between countries, and the details of your situation matter. If a decision carries real risk, such as a paid campaign, merchandise or a product name, talk to a lawyer who works in your jurisdiction.

What a trademark protects

A trademark is a sign that tells people who a product or service comes from. Names, logos and symbols are the usual examples; in some cases colors or sounds qualify too. The point of the protection is to prevent confusion: people should be able to trust that something carrying a brand's mark actually comes from, or is approved by, that brand.

Trademark rights are about use in trade and the risk of confusion, not about who may draw a shape in the abstract. How strong they are depends on the jurisdiction, on registration and on how the mark is used; some countries also recognize rights that arise from use alone.

A logo usually carries two separate layers of rights:

Keeping these apart clears up most of the confusion. An icon set can give you rights to a drawing. It cannot give you rights to a brand.

Crypto adds some ambiguity

In most industries, the owner of a logo is obvious. In crypto it often isn't. A protocol may involve a foundation, a development company and an open community at the same time. Some projects register their names and logos and publish brand guidelines; others publish nothing. A ticker like ETH or SOL works as a market symbol used across exchanges and data feeds, which is a different thing from the stylized logo artwork.

Don't read "decentralized" as "anyone can do anything with the logo". Check whether the project publishes a brand or press page, and treat its guidelines as the owner's stated expectations. The guide to press kits and brand guidelines covers where to find them and what they contain.

Referring to a brand vs. borrowing it

Many legal systems let you use someone else's mark to refer to their actual product. In the United States this is often discussed as nominative fair use; EU trademark law has a comparable allowance for using a mark to identify or refer to the owner's goods, as long as it's in line with honest practices. The exact tests differ, but they circle the same three questions:

1. Do you need the mark to identify the thing? You can't describe a USDC balance without saying USDC.
2. Do you use only as much as you need? The name is often enough. A logo, or a logo shown large, is a stronger brand signal than a plain word.
3. Do you avoid suggesting sponsorship or endorsement? Nothing in the design or copy should imply that the brand owner is behind your product or approves of it.

Run everyday crypto interfaces through those questions and a pattern appears. These uses identify something:

• a token row in a portfolio with the USDC icon at 24 px beside the balance;
• a network switcher showing the Arbitrum One logo next to the network's name, so people know where a transaction goes;
• a "Supported wallets" list in a connect modal, showing which wallets work.

In each case the logo is small, functional and sits next to the thing it names. Compare these uses, which go further:

• using a chain's logo as your app icon or favicon, which makes your product look like theirs;
• a banner that places a wallet's logo beside yours at the same size, with a "×" between them, which reads as a joint announcement;
• merchandise or NFT artwork built around a project's logo, which sells the brand itself;
• folding someone's logo, or a close variation of it, into your own branding.

Why the icon license doesn't cover the brand

Icon sets for crypto logos are usually released under an open source license. The artwork on Web3 Icons, for example, comes from the web3icons library under the MIT license. That license gives you broad rights to use, copy, modify and distribute the files, on condition that you keep the copyright and permission notice. The MIT license guide walks through it clause by clause.

What the license can't do is grant trademark rights, for a simple reason: the people who drew and packaged the icons don't own the brands. The MIT license doesn't mention trademarks at all. Some other licenses, such as Apache 2.0 and the Creative Commons 4.0 licenses, say outright that they don't license trademarks. Either way, the result is the same. The license covers the drawing; the brand still belongs to its owner, and any trademark question is between you and them. That's why icon libraries, this one included, note that logos are trademarks of their respective owners.

So "the icon set is MIT, so I can use the logo however I like" is a mistake. The license settles the copyright question about the file. It says nothing about the trademark question.

When to ask for permission

Asking is cheap, and a written yes removes doubt. The table below is a rough rule of thumb, not a legal test:

When you ask, make it easy to say yes. Use the contact on the project's brand or press page, say exactly where the logo will appear, at what size and with what wording, and attach a mockup. Keep the reply on file with the date. The guide on using third-party logos in marketing covers campaign situations in more detail.

A quick self-check

Before you ship something with another project's logo in it, check that:

• the logo identifies the real product, network or asset it belongs to;
• it's no larger or more prominent than the job requires;
• nothing in the copy or layout suggests an endorsement you don't have;
• the artwork matches the official logo and follows the published guidelines;
• you have written permission for ads, merchandise, co-branding or any modified version.