Original Author: Tang Yuan

Original Author: Tang Yuan

Since October, the 3D virtual character NFT project CloneX has been in constant motion. First, on October 5th, it opened the tour of the metaverse with the promotional video of "Clone XStory Mode"; 2 days later, the screen of CloneX's avatar holding an egg-shaped device with unknown creatures was exposed; on October 8th, the new video was revealed , the new character "Animus" is inside the egg. A series of actions indicated that CloneX opened the prelude to a new story.

There are 3 characters in the Animus short film, one is a female CloneX avatar, and there are two biological characters, one big and one small, which look like dinosaurs. The two creatures followed the female avatar and entered the virtual space together with rows of incubators like Egg Drops, from which the Animus biological characters will break out of their shells.

Although Animus will not be available until 2023, this trailer directly exploded the market for CloneX series NFT.

According to NFTGO data, on October 7, when the Animus egg was unveiled, the CloneX transaction volume reached 1481 ETH (approximately 1.97 million US dollars), and the floor price rose to 9.2 ETH (approximately 12,000 US dollars). In just 4 days, CloneX's floor price rose by 33% within 7 days, and it became the second largest NFT project on the Ethereum chain with a transaction volume of 3923 ETH (approximately 5.234 million US dollars). During the same period, the trading volume of the No. 1 NFT project Boring Ape BAYC was 3,930 ETH (approximately 5.26 million US dollars), and the difference between the two transactions was less than 30,000 US dollars.

The market change of CloneX has refocused the attention of the outside world on RTFKT, the development team behind it. Now, RTFKT is not just the code name of a project team, it is a fashion brand in the Metaverse industry.

RTFKT was born on the eve of the outbreak of the NFT market in 2020. Its early business orientation was to design and produce NFT products such as virtual shoes and virtual clothing. Later, it was noticed by the outside world for designing various fashionable virtual sports shoes. At the end of 2021, its virtual clothing creation business was once again out of the circle due to its acquisition by Nike. Strike while the iron is hot. RTFKT launched the CloneX 3D character NFT series in the same year.

It may take several years or even ten years for a fashion brand in reality to grow into a trendy brand in the eyes of the public. After the emergence of the metaverse concept, RTFKT proved that entrepreneurs can quickly create a new fashion brand in the virtual world by virtue of their excellent design and technology development capabilities, and then spread it offline. How fast can it be? From scratch, RTFKT only took 2 years.

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Musk brought the CyberSneaker designer RTFKT out of the circle

In February 2020, a photo was released at the Met Gala, an annual event known as the "Oscars in the fashion circle", showing a close-up of a pair of car-like shoes on Musk's feet. The shape of these shoes is similar to the electric pickup truck CyberTruck launched by Tesla at that time, attracting netizens to watch. After the fashion event, Musk also asked fans on social media whether he liked his pair of "CyberSneakers" (cybersneakers). The "Godfather of Electric Vehicles" made such a statement, and these shoes completely ignited people's curiosity.

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The CyberSneaker on Musk's feet is close-up

After the media found out, this pair of CyberSneakers were not the real shoes that Musk wore that day, but PS onto Musk's feet. The designer was a team called RTFKT. However, the shoes do exist in the virtual world.

Soon, CyberSneaker appeared on the NFT trading platform SuperRare, and started bidding with a reserve price of 30ETH, and finally sold at 65 ETH. According to the price of ETH at the time, this pair of virtual shoes was worth $150,000. For comparison, the Air Jordan 1s sneakers worn by former NBA star Michael Jordan in 1985 were sold for $560,000 in Sotheby's online auction in May 2020. The price of CyberSneaker is 1/4 of Jordan boots.

With the promotion of Musk himself and the high-priced auction, CyberSneaker was successfully out of the circle, and the major media rushed to report. The designer RTFKT made its debut and received a lot of attention at the beginning.

The popularity of CyberSneaker has pushed RTFKT to the status of "the pioneer of virtual sneakers". Under this name, RTFKT has played tricks on the marketing of virtual shoes. When the physical brand anxiously wants to enter the metaverse field, RTFKT is just the opposite. It chooses to move from the virtual to the real, connecting the NFT in the virtual world with the products in the physical world.

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IP linkage RTFKT makes the virtual shoe business into reality

In March of that year, RTFKT cooperated with NFT encryption artist Fewocious to launch a joint virtual sneaker NFT. After purchasing the NFT, users will receive a pair of physical sneakers of the same style. It is reported that this series of NFT virtual shoes sold more than 600 pairs within 7 minutes of the sale, with a total sales of more than 3.1 million US dollars, and the average price of each pair of shoes reached 4992 US dollars, which is comparable to the basic models of luxury shoes. Today, on the NFT trading platform OpenSea, the floor price of FEWOCiOUSx RTFKT’s joint sneakers is still 2.15 ETH, which is about $2,795.

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RTFKT and Fewocious joint virtual sneakers

When cooperating with the originator of NFT brand CryptoPunk, RTFKT designed 3D virtual sneakers NFT and 3D interactive avatar NFT for the holders of the Pixelman NFT, which can be used in the metaverse, and also for NFT holders of the CryptoPunk series Introduced physical sneakers. In addition to the design, the two brands have also carried out an ecological linkage. Users can unlock RTFKT online and offline items through the CryptoPunk they hold. The cooperation with the top NFT brand has rapidly increased the influence of RTFKT in the encryption industry.

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A product jointly launched by RTFKT and CryptoPunk

In addition to designing and making virtual shoes, RTFKT also combines game engine technology and augmented reality technology (AR filter), allowing users to put virtual clothing on their bodies through AR devices. For example, if you really want to see the effect of wearing the virtual sneakers designed by RTFKT, you can click on the AR filter of RTFKTAR to realize it, and then consider whether to place an order to buy. When you buy shoes through encrypted assets, through AR filters, you can also display photos and videos of you "wearing" these shoes on Twitter, Instagram and other social platforms, and even receive a pair of physical versions of the same style.

With the help of linkage with well-known online and offline IPs, RTFKT takes virtual shoes as its core product, uses blockchain and AR technology to reshape the design and manufacture of fashion products, and breaks the boundary between virtual and reality of digital collections. Its operating philosophy quickly attracted the attention of capital.

On May 4, 2021, RTFKT completed a US$8 million seed round of financing led by the well-known encryption capital A16Z. A16Z partner Jonathan Lai commented that RTFKT is in a leading position in building a bridge between digital fashion and physical fashion. Half a year later, in December, the sports brand Nike (Nike) announced the acquisition of RTFKT.

Nike's acquisition pushed RTFRT's popularity to new heights. This acquisition is not only seen as evidence of the traditional sports brand Nike’s layout in the metaverse, but even releases the space for virtual fashion brands to transform traditional industries.

NFT applications are simply unique in this field, and it is not surprising that RTFKT is favored by Nike. According to the latest data from DuneAnalytics, since Nike announced that it entered the metaverse to produce a series of virtual clothing, it has created more than $185 million in revenue.

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Create CloneX virtual character NFT to lay out the metaverse

One month before being acquired by Nike, RTFKT cooperated with Japanese artist Takashi Murakami to launch the 3D anime avatar NFT series CloneX on the Ethereum chain. This series of avatars has the theme of aliens, and a total of 20,000 avatars were generated. The initial casting The price is 2 ETH. At that time, CloneX was the first 3D animation work on the Ethereum chain, and it was also the first original avatar NFT collection launched by RTFKT.

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CloneXCharacter

Although it was originally born as a social avatar NFT, RTFKT's positioning of CloneX is "designed for the interaction of the metaverse world", which is why this series of works is not two-dimensional at the beginning, but incorporates 3D modeling technology , and try to combine with AR devices in the future. RTFKT will develop a series of NFT clothing, shoes or accessories for CloneX characters, and these virtual products can also be forged into real items. With RTFKT's practical experience in creating "virtual-reality" shoes, this route is not like a picture at all.

Finally, in August this year, RTFKT’s clothing designed for CloneX holders went online. The clothing line named "Clone X Forging" includes T-Shirt, sweater, jacket, down jacket, pants, hat and sneakers. Each piece of clothing has an NFT version that users can wear in the virtual world, and a physical version that NFT users can exchange for real clothing.

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CloneX Forging Wearables

It is worth mentioning that these physical clothing are also equipped with a special "NFC identification tag", which allows the physical product to have digital attributes, and the corresponding NFT can be linked by identifying the NFC tag. Benoit, the founder of RTFKT, said that virtual goods can be exchanged for physical goods and the built-in NFC tags of physical goods will help users understand the boundaries between digital avatars and physical identities in the metaverse, and unlock the corresponding metaverse or real world resources.

This seems to have opened up the initial route for physical brands to build a metaverse. It not only needs to virtualize physical goods, but more importantly, to make physical objects in the virtual world correspond to digital identities in the virtual space, and then to connect online and offline, and connect with Other relationships between people, objects, and space.

RTFKT seems to have formed a set of business logic that connects the real world with the virtual world. It not only creates virtual items and characters, but also maps these digital things to offline. Through traditional e-commerce platforms, online and offline link together. On the one hand, RTFKT uses the CloneX series of NFTs to provide virtual avatars for real users, and realizes personalized dressing needs through the design and manufacturing experience of virtual shoes; on the other hand, when RTFKT designs and develops related virtual fashion products, it not only allows Users use virtual avatars in the metaverse, and can also exchange virtual products for physical objects of the same design.

The three major subjects of the "people and goods field" mentioned in the consumption or marketing industry are emerging in the RTFKT ecology. After there are people (CloneX virtual character NFT) and goods (wearable fashion product NFT), RTFKT needs another field (virtual space) .

In October of this year, the new Animus project released by RTFKT was speculated that it would create metaverse space. But judging from the public content, Animus is more like a game world created for CloneX virtual characters. In this world, CloneX will take risks with two biological characters. According to the official introduction, these two creatures are the companions of the CloneX characters. Each creature has different characteristics and abilities, and it takes time for the CloneX characters to hatch from the biological eggs.

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Characters featured in the "Animus" video

It is reported that Animus will be released in 2023, and RTFKT officials did not disclose too many details. It can be seen that RTFKT, which started with a pair of virtual shoes, has not stagnated since entering the NFT industry. Along the way, it has made shoes, made social avatars, and created the metaverse. RTFKT, which has become a virtual fashion brand, has very clear ideas and actions. It never exclusively goes online or offline, but breaks through the boundary between virtual and reality through the easier-to-implement clothing industry, and then takes this idea all the way test.