Source: news.google.com
Is the future of footwear here? Fashion startup Web3 that Nike bought last year seems to be pushing that narrative with a tech-packed dual-world drop.
Through Friday at 11 am ET, sneaker lovers across the US Nike Cryptokicks iRL shoes (in real life). These state-of-the-art RTFKT kicks that connect to users’ smartphones are available for the blockchain price of just 0.34 ETH (Ethereum coin), which translates to roughly $417 US dollars.
Hailed as the first sneaker to merge the digital and physical worlds, this sneaker, and its corresponding NFT, is limited to just 19,000 models to be built in each reality.
“In the shadows created by the central fires lies the blackout. He is slippery, cunning, always escaping comprehension or comprehension. It is said that those who wear it can travel between worlds without being detected,” says the RTFKT website. “Cryptokicks iRL is the first native Web3 sneaker to feature the latest technology that combines decades of Nike Sneaker innovation with RTFKT’s vision of merging the digital and physical worlds.”
RTKFT (pronounced ‘artifact’) is the digital and collectible fashion company, recently acquired by Nike, which launched in 2020 and aims to bring the digital, virtual and crypto worlds together in real-world fashion.
To qualify to purchase one of the 19,000 Cryptokicks iRL sneakers that will ever exist in the material world, consumers need only log into the RTFKT website for “the drop” which will first require prospects to sign up for an RTFKT account. Interested buyers will also need “a WalletConnect-compatible cryptocurrency wallet, at least .5 ETH ($625 USD) in your wallet, and a US shipping address.”
Consumers whose entry is chosen in a “private mint pick” (or raffle) on December 12 at 10:30 am ET can purchase 1 Lace Engine NFT and then redeem, or as they say in the cryptocurrency world, ” Burn”: That token for a pair of shoes in any of the four “colorways” on offer, including Blackout, Stone, Ice, and Space Matter.
Blackout
The “mint,” which Webster’s Dictionary defines as “a place where money is minted,” gives way to the “forging” process, which will systematically turn “burnt” tokens into physical shoes. The “color combinations” chosen by the 19,000 “minters” will be tracked on a live “leaderboard” on the RTFKT website. The data retrieved from this “leader table” will inform Nike how many shoes of each “color combination” it should make in its “factory.”
If any of the 19,000 shoes remain after December 14, they will be available for sale on the RTFKT website for 0.5 ETH, or roughly $625 at current market value.
In other words, Cryptokicks iRL is posing as a marketing scheme for a limited release product that requires prospective customers to sign up for a cryptocurrency account, deposit money into a crypto wallet, and then use that to buy a shoe that It comes in the US mail. If there are any shoes left after the push, they will still be for sale on the site at a higher price.
Someday later, presumably, more of these shoes will be produced and made available to consumers through traditional US auctions.
While the marketing behind the Cryptokicks iRL may be a bunch of Newspeak covered on top of the same old gibberish, the shoe itself may be truly revolutionary.
A tribute to Tinker Hatfield, famed Nike ‘Innovation Kitchen’ supervisor and ‘Air Mag’ designer, this shoe features self-lacing, enhanced lighting, haptic feedback, gesture control, gait detection, app connectivity, AI /ML algorithms and wireless charging.
The shoes promise a pre-programmed fit that adjusts shortly after wearers start walking. They’ll also have iRL Quests, along with the app, which could translate into something like scavenger hunts with others, à la Pokemon Go.
They will also come with a chip that will track the NFT from which they were generated to “verify legitimacy and provenance.”
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