The Metaverse is no longer a place of the future, but the reality of the present. With crypto and NFTs being the new frontier for investing opportunities, it seems that everyone and everything is heading to mine the digital gold rush. Last week Mark Zuckerberg made headlines for announcing that the Facebook company would be changing its name to “Meta,” further concretizing that the Metaverse is bound to be a household mainstay, rather than just some pseudo cyber fantasy.
According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, paperwork filed on October 27, 2021 revealed that Nike registered a new Trademark application for “Nike,” “Just Do It,” and of course, the signature Nike “Swoosh.” Further examination of the paperwork shows that Nike intends to manufacture and sell not only virtual sneakers, but “downloadable virtual goods” and “retail store services featuring virtual goods.”
It may be that Nike is just trying to protect their trademark in this new digital realm, but being that Nike is always at the forefront of emerging trends, it seems that Nike has intentions of joining the NFT market based on the details of the trademark file.
A non-fungible token, also known as NFT, is defined by Forbes as being “a digital asset that represents real-world objects like art, music, in-game items and videos. They are bought and sold online, frequently with cryptocurrency, and they are generally encoded with the same underlying software as many cryptos.”
Owning an NFT is essentially like collecting digital art that can be traded and sold. With a proper scope on culture, you could potentially own a digital object that will accumulate real-world value over time. To put it in the context of sneakers, it’s pretty much like owning a pair of the Fragment Design x Travis Scott x Air Jordan 1 High OG SPs — what was once a $200 sneaker is now valued at an upwards of $3,500. However, not all NFTs (or sneakers) are created equal. The NFT realm is so new, it’s almost hard to tell what exactly will increase in value as time goes on. There has been a surplus of companies and artists offering NFTs as everyone is trying to get in while they can, but more than likely, a lot of these NFTs are destined to fall flat.
However, a company as big as Nike, who has managed to create value at the drop of a colorway, makes it tempting to reconsider our initial impression of NFTs. This isn’t the first time that NFTs have been attached to footwear, with some of the most recent NFT offerings being from iconic sneaker customizer, The Shoe Surgeon, and even a new startup from the former Head of Energy at adidas, Till Jagla.
Simply put, it seems that there’s no avoiding NFTs. The only question left is whether they’re here to stay or just another tech trend that will fade out over time. Yet even with its uncertainties, Nike‘s trademark request for virtual goods and services leaves us excited to see what the future holds. Join the conversation and let us know what you think via @Instagram.
