If you can’t build it, Buy it.

Nike is a marketing machine that adapts and eats hype for breakfast. Their ability to ride the waves and move quickly makes them a fearsome competitor in the market.

Do me a favor, read the following out loud.

RTFKT.

Sounds like “artifact” eh?

Have you heard of the company RTFKT?

“In December 2021, NIKE, Inc. acquired RTFKT for a sum thought to be in excess of $1 billion”.

So what is it and why would Nike, a multi-billion dollar corporation pay for it?

Simply put, RTFKT is a company that creates beautiful NFTs that are often limited edition and very exquisitely high quality.

RTFKT’s 3 cofounders were Benoit Pagotto, Chris Le and Steven Vasilev.

They, like many others, were inspired by games and artwork from our generation, like Diablo, Minecraft, Dragon Ball and Runescape.

But they know how to market their ware.

Benoit Pagotto is the founder of RTFKT, a virtual fashion platform that quickly became one of the biggest brands in the NFT market.

They understood the power of virality and social media.

They knew how to create awesome short videos of mind-blowing graphical qualities that was inspiring and cutting-edge.

When the world saw the color-changing shoes, it went viral on crypto twitter.

When they released Meta Pigeons, Clone X and a string of other collabs, people started seeing how creative and beautiful the artwork were.

Collecting these NFTs were no longer just pure hype and speculation, people were convinced RTFKT was the real deal.

They even did a free project with CryptoPunks and that sealed the deal.

They had slowly built trust within the NFT community.

Futuristic Nike concept stores that would capture anyone’s imagination and attention.

They even caught the attention of a16z who invested $8M in the company.

Talk about boosting confidence and being more legit, this is as good as it gets.

They were the first NFT company to hit 1M followers on TikTok too.

RTFKT launched in 2020 and in less than 2 years, it got acquired by Nike for a rumoured $1B.

That is extraordinary.

Who says you can’t make a successful NFT company?

For a nascent community still trying to find its footing, with haters and doubters all around, building a successful business in the NFT space is particularly challenging.

Nike is a powerhouse brand known globally and adored by hardcore fans all over. And they just made new friends in the metaverse.

It is not easy to find your footing amongst the thousands of competitors swarming in at the height of NFT summer.

If you manage to go viral for a bit, the effects won’t last long and people’s attention will fade.

So perhaps getting bought over by Nike will give it the best chance to continue growing.

Nike is smart too.

If you can’t build it, buy it.

Nike has a tremendous brand presence globally.

RTFKT has a phenomenal brand presence in the NFT space.

Nike and RTFKT marrying might produce the best results, as they are complementary to each other.

The future of Nike is about embracing and eloping with change.

Last year, Nike made $185M with its NFT-related projects.

They are at the top of the leaderboard and the undisputed champion right now.

“The sports brand raked in $1.3 billion in transaction volume with $93 million from primary sales of NFTs while generating $92 million in the form of royalties”.

Let’s see what new and interesting things Nike x RTFKT will do this year.

All I know is large brands are not sleeping on the web3 space anymore.

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Did you know Nike has one of the most successful NFT brands in the market?

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