So what do the buyers of the Nike Cryptokicks actually own? It’s not quite clear.
The rollout was shrouded in mystery. In February, RTFKT released 20,000 NFTs of a mysterious box called MNLTH, pronounced “monolith” (vowels are apparently for noobs in the NFT world). The only clue as to what was inside was the Nike Swoosh and RTFKT lightning bolt logo.
About 8,100 people who had an NFT of one of RTFKT’s earlier collections received an MNLTH at no extra cost, said Joe Chui, 39, a San Francisco NFT analyst who runs the YouTube channel RealTalkFIRE, who received two. Anyone could buy one on OpenSea, starting around 5 Ether (about $15,000 at the time), although no one knew what was in it. (Nike did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)
That didn’t stop Bryson Honjo, 31, who lives in Honolulu and runs UntiedHawaii, a YouTube sneaker channel, from paying 5 Ether each for two MNLTH boxes. “You have to believe that this is going to be another revolutionary sneaker, similar to the Air Jordan 1 from 1985,” said Mr. honjo.
On April 22, after months of speculation, Nike announced on Twitter, Discord and other social media platforms that owners could connect their crypto wallets, where they had stored the NFTs, to the RTFKT site to “open” their boxes. said Mr. Chui.
Inside, owners found a digital image of a generic basketball shoe called Nike Dunk Genesis Cryptokick, along with a virtual “skin vial” – a glowing canister that, once inserted into a port on the virtual sneaker’s tongue, gives the sneaker its final appearance.