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⌐◪-◪ → Another one bites the dust.

RTFKT, the digital wearables startup that Nike acquired in 2021 for an undisclosed sum thought to exceed $1 billion, just announced it will cease operations.

The official announcement was titled "A New Chapter for RTFKT"—a strange choice of words considering they’re essentially saying, “we’re dead.”

It’s pretty wild that Nike—one of the world’s most recognized brands—couldn’t find success here, especially when people like Luca Netz, who started with nothing, turned Pudgy Penguins into one of Web3’s most successful projects.

This shows that traditional corporate strategies don’t always work in a decentralized, community-driven space like Web3. RTFKT’s team never really engaged with their community at events—online or IRL—a huge miss that foreshadowed their eventual demise.

It’s tough to see so many normies, who entered NFTs bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, get rekt. But this is the risk most NFT projects face when their success relies on the promotional efforts of a single entity. It also highlights the resilience of projects where the only “thing” you own is the art (NFT itself) and the community—no extra utility or marketing promises.

With NFT volumes ripping again, RTFKT’s timing couldn’t have been worse. Shoutout to Nike for at least trying, though. I expect they’ll return to NFTs eventually; the digital frontier is too big to ignore, and margins on virtual products are chef’s kiss.

⌐◪-◪ → Congrats to the homie and fellow CryptoPunk Fonz!

Yuga Labs just acquired Tokenproof—the tech stack everyone uses to prove NFT ownership for events and perks without exposing their wallets.

Back in the early NFT days, you had to literally open MetaMask to show security your NFT—a massive security risk. Tokenproof solved that problem simply and effectively, becoming the gold standard for IRL events.

I’ve used their tech for countless events over the years. Yuga acquiring them feels like the start of something big. Getting into events is just the tip of the iceberg—I expect Yuga to use this to roll out even more exciting real-world activations.

If you haven’t been to a Yuga event yet, they’re wild (as long as your retinas survive the lasers). Shoutout to my homies Natalie Stone and Spicy Tina—I’ll miss you guys big-time in Miami this year!

The NFT bull market is back. Floor prices are ripping, and volumes are up across the board. Let’s be honest: NFTs are more fun than memecoins.

DRINKS ON FONZ IF YOU SEE HIM IN BASEL!!!

⌐◪-◪ → Safe is bringing the world’s GDP onchain.

Safe, the leading smart account (multisig) provider, just announced Safenet—a transaction processor network (not another L2!) that connects L1s, L2s, and even off-chain systems like Visa and CEXs into one unified experience.

They’re calling it a “metanetwork” that brings instant cross-chain transactions and execution guarantees to Safe smart account users. Think of it like VisaNet, but onchain.

Safe already powers the DeFi ecosystem, with 30M accounts and over $100B in TVL. With Safenet, they’re solving key challenges like fragmentation, speed, and scalability.

If you want to dive deeper, check out their vision or technical docs.

Huge shoutout to Safe for sponsoring this lil newsletter. To my fellow Speccies, please show our sponsor some love and help bring the world’s GDP onchain by giving their announcement a retweet.

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