Four years after Nike announced its surprise acquisition of digital apparel brand RTFKT, the world’s largest sports apparel company is selling its non-fungible token (NFT) studio, sending its flagship Clone-X collection soaring.
The move comes just over a year after RTFKT announced it would cease operations, resulting in the Clone-X NFT collection dropping to 0.07 ETH, a 99.7% drop from its all-time high of 24 ETH during the 2022 NFT bull market.
However, Clone-X bounced back to the 0.3 ETH floor on sale news, rising 200% in the past 24 hours.
Clone-X Lowest Price – OpenSea
The Oregonian, a newspaper based in Nike’s home state of Oregon, broke the news, reporting that “the company quietly sold RTFKT, pronounced ‘artifact,’ last month.”
Neither the buyer nor the purchase price was disclosed, but Nike told The Oregonian that the sale was effective as of Dec. 16, and that RTFKT’s former chief technology officer Samuel Cardillo began teasing involvement in the move to X.
Citing the announcement, Cardillo said, “The story continues,” and when asked if community members would play future roles, Cardillo replied, “We’ll see. But…have I ever stopped being part of the story?”
Despite today’s statement, Mr. Cardillo has posted multiple times that he will retire from his position in April 2025 and is no longer affiliated with RTFKT.