Almost exactly three years after Nike announced its takeover of NFT specialist Rtfkt, it is now closing its virtual doors.
On Monday, the US company announced on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) that it would cease Rtfkt activities. The Web3 services offered by the platform are scheduled to expire by the end of January.
However, the project won’t disappear completely: Rtfkt plans to launch a website that will showcase its previous work, including virtual versions of the Nike Dunk sneakers. However, services such as the complex online quests that community members occasionally had to complete to gain access to products will be discontinued.
“Rtfkt is not ending,” said a statement from the brand titled “A New Chapter for Rtfkt.” “It becomes what it was always meant to be – an artifact of the cultural revolution.”
It seems unlikely that ending the platform in its current form was part of the plans from the start for the takeover – the terms of which were never made public. However, this decision comes less than two months after Nike CEO John Donahoe resigned. Donahoe, who moved from eBay to Nike in 2020, originally had a vision to modernize the company with his expertise in the technology industry. Under his leadership, the brand not only acquired Rtfkt, but also launched its own Web3 project called Swoosh.