Buyers of NFTs from Nike-affiliated studio RTFKT have filed a class action lawsuit against the company, seeking compensation for losses due to the project’s termination, as reported by Reuters.
Nike acquired RTFKT in 2021 to “expand its digital presence.” As a division of the corporation, the studio released several NFT collections and “digital sneakers” under its own brand.
In December 2024, amidst a decline in popularity of the non-fungible token and metaverse segments, RTFKT announced it would cease operations by the end of 2025. The team clarified that the issued tokens would remain in circulation after the closure.
According to Reuters, on April 25, Australian Jagdeep Chima filed a class action lawsuit against Nike in federal court in New York. He claims that the announcement of RTFKT’s closure led to a decline in demand for the project’s non-fungible tokens, causing financial harm to their holders.
The plaintiff argues that users would not have agreed to purchase the NFTs under the same conditions had they known they would “turn out to be unregistered securities,” and that Nike would “pull the rug out from under them.”
The claimant seeks over $5 million in compensation for alleged violations of consumer protection laws in New York, California, Florida, and Oregon.
Earlier, more than 19,800 digital avatars from RTFKT’s NFT collection lost their associated images and videos due to an issue with Cloudflare’s service, but the team soon restored access to the content.