In December last year, the crypto trendy brand RTFKT was acquired by Nike. This "magic move" not only allowed RTFKT to realize its dream and achieve the goal of creating "Nike in the metaverse", but also brought hundreds of millions of dollars to Nike's Web3 products. revenue, becoming the most successful sports brand in the Web3 field. However, as a leading brand in the sports field, NIKE's ambitions go far beyond that. The acquisition of RTFKT may be just a starting point for them to successfully enter Web3. In the new digital technology field, they also want to do more practice.

So at the beginning of this year, Nike established the virtual studio "Nike Virtual Studios", led by Ron Faris, vice president and former head of the mobile application SNKRS, and operated as an independent studio. On November 18, the team finally officially launched its first project "Dot Swoosh", a Web3 ecosystem platform. This project has been planned for a long time. According to reports, Nike purchased the ENS domain name "dotswoosh.eth" in May this year for 19.72 ETH (current price of approximately US$38,000). According to Faris's vision, Dot Swoosh will become the home base of Nike's virtual creativity and a place where people can purchase, display and trade virtual assets.

If the sub-brand RTFKT is the interaction between Nike and the niche "Web3 natives", then Dot Swoosh is "opening the door" to a wider consumer group. Nike hopes to expand its Web3 customer base through Dot Swoosh, beyond the scope of RTFKT's unique user group, and attract consumers who lack experience in the world of Web3. Faris said that the RTFKT team has been imparting knowledge to Nike Virtual Studios and provided a lot of information from technology to strategy. However, as an independent project of Nike, its goal is to cultivate more new users to participate in the Nike community, not just for "Web3 natives", and emphasizes "fair competition".

Co-creation and sharing through community education

Dot Swoosh plans to continuously conduct IRL tutorials throughout the community and host conferences on its official website to introduce the digital world to new and old Web3 users. In addition, they will also hold offline conferences in selected cities to educate users to build their own 3D virtual works so that they can thrive in this new field. Dot Swoosh hopes to create a fair competitive environment so that everyone, whether creators or collectors, can enjoy technology and creativity.

In the process of building the community, Dot Swoosh will provide everyone with the opportunity to co-create virtual products, which is also a key part of the entire project. They plan to first invite users to help curate and shape Dot Swoosh's first series, and more community challenges will be held starting next spring. Users who win the community challenge will have the opportunity to create a virtual product line with the official design team, jointly launching a series covering all sports and cultural fields, and they will also earn royalties for each virtual product they participate in designing.

Faris said that its virtual products will be wearable devices for RTFKT's Clones avatars, and plans to eventually use them as wearable devices in video games to expand its reach. Nike has previously dabbled in this area, launching Air Jordan virtual sneaker equipment for the game "Fortress Night" in 2019. Nike will also announce new partners next year to allow its virtual goods to be more widely used. In the future, Nike may also offer reservations for physical shoes in the form of virtual shoes.

For now, Nike wants to intentionally pace the Dot Swoosh, and the brand believes that there needs to be a lot of education around the metaverse before it starts dropping virtual goods on a regular basis. "We're not going to sell stuff right away," Faris explained. "We really want to be careful and thoughtful about how we invite the community to participate. So we're going to start with a month of education." Nike Virtual Studios will hold a tour of courses in Atlanta, Charlotte, Louisville, Los Angeles, New York City, and Tallahassee in December. Once the release of virtual products has a more regular rhythm and Nike Virtual Studios successfully attracts a following, the team believes it can create opportunities for more outsiders.

Dot Swoosh and RTFKT, are they working together or competing for living space?

On November 14, the American fashion magazine VOGUE announced the upcoming launch of Dot Swoosh. RTFKT’s official Twitter account immediately retweeted the message to promote the Web3 platform independently developed by its parent company. The post read: “.SWOOSH, launched by Nike, is a platform for virtual creation. RTFKT will continue to maintain its leading position and work with Nike to jointly lead millions of users to join web3. Clones (Clone X NFT holders) will gain access to .SWOOSH IDs, and the products released by Nike will be cloned digital wearable devices. More collaborations will bring the world together.”

Given that Nike regards Dot Swoosh as an "independent strategy" of Web3 and has borrowed and referenced RTFKT during the development process, and that there are only a very small number of Web3 participants at present, many users have expressed concerns, such as whether RTFKT will face competitive pressure from Dot Swoosh in the future, whether existing NFTs such as Clone X will face utility depreciation, etc.

Benito, co-founder of RTFKT, provided insights into these questions. He believes that as more and more mainstream people enter the Web3 digital field, RTFKT and all its community innovations and creations will become more and more iconic and legendary. Dot Swoosh has the potential to become the next engine for massive growth. It has educational functions and cool products and experiences, and is reimagined with Web3. He also said that he has been working with the Nike Virtual Studios team and helping them prepare for the next wave of web3.

According to its conception, projects like Dot Swoosh will be a huge entrance to guide millions of consumers into Web3. The more people join the Web3 community and own NFTs, the more valuable the collection of native projects such as CloneX will be. In terms of cooperation, the Dot Swoosh platform allows users to work with Nike designers to develop virtual products and even earn royalties from the sales of these products. This advantage will introduce a large number of creators and inject fresh blood and motivation into the peripheral development of RTFKT and the virtual clothing design of Clones. In addition, although RTFKT is already a leader in the virtual digital field, its popularity is still far from comparable to Nike, and Nike has no experience in community operation under the Web3 model. The two complement each other's advantages and can improve interoperability through joint cooperation and provide each other with exposure and experience.

Unlike most Web3 projects, Nike has kept most of its plans for Web3 relatively confidential. After the launch of Dot Swoosh, Nike has made far more promises about the future than its current products and services. The brand is still in the testing and learning stage of Web3, and Dot Swoosh will be a marathon with no end in sight. However, as its most classic slogan "just do it" suggests, the best direction is to keep moving forward.