TL;DR
- RTFKT, the digital sneaker company acquired by Nike, will cease operations in January 2025 after four years of impact on the NFT market.
- The company will release a final NFT collection called “BLADE DROP” in December 2024, before its official closure.
- RTFKT left a legacy with milestones like the “Nike Cryptokicks” and successful partnerships, despite a decline in demand for its products.
RTFKT, the innovative digital sneaker company acquired by Nike in 2021, has announced that it will cease operations in January 2025, marking the end of a four-year period characterized by increasing influence in the NFT market.
Founded in 2020, RTFKT stood out for its focus on designing sneakers for the metaverse, a niche that gained significant relevance in the industry, especially during the boom of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in the early 2020s.
— RTFKT (@RTFKT) December 2, 2024
A Final Collection
Despite the imminent closure, RTFKT has communicated that before saying goodbye, it will release a final NFT collection in December 2024, called “BLADE DROP.” This collection will serve as the grand finale to a series of innovations that have defined the company, which remains committed to pushing creative boundaries until the last moment. In its statement, the company emphasized that its closure does not mark the end of its legacy, but rather a transition to what they consider its original goal: to become “an artifact of cultural revolution.”
RTFKT’s journey was marked by several milestones, such as the 2022 launch of the “Nike Cryptokicks,” the first NFT sneakers created in collaboration with Nike, which were quickly traded at a price of 2.9 ETH.
Numbers No Longer Add Up for RTFKT
Additionally, in 2023, the company partnered with Ledger to release a special edition of NFTs tied to their Nano S and Nano X devices. Throughout its existence, RTFKT experienced significant growth, although it has recently been affected by a decline in demand for its products, which was reflected in its fiscal projections for 2024.
Among its major achievements are the MNLTH and CloneX Mintvial collections, which generated enormous revenue through royalties, reaching $16.4 million and $13.9 million, respectively. However, the company’s closure comes at a time when the NFT market seems to be undergoing a recovery, with sales increasing in November 2024, suggesting that the industry may be experiencing a revitalization after a period of slowdown.
With RTFKT’s farewell, an important chapter in the history of NFTs and the metaverse comes to a close, though its legacy will live on in the collections that made a mark on digital culture
