Nike Sprints Into Web3 With New .SWOOSH Platform

Athletic footwear giant Nike is taking further steps into Web3 with the release of .SWOOSH, a new platform geared towards building a community around its digital wearables, the company said Monday.

Nike says .SWOOSH will be a resource for Web3 education and a platform to buy and trade digital collectibles, such as virtual sneakers or jerseys. These items can be worn in video games and other immersive experiences, the company says.

Additionally, .SWOOSH will allow users to create their own collections on the platform, from which they can earn royalties.

“We are shaping a marketplace of the future with an accessible platform for the Web3-curious. In this new space, the .SWOOSH community and Nike can create, share, and benefit together,” Ron Faris, GM of Nike Virtual Studios, said in a press release.

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Nike’s been making steady moves to expand its Web3 strategy over the past several years. After filing a patent for Web3 sneakers called “Cryptokicks” in December 2019 and testing its sneakers with an RFID lab in March 2020, the sneaker giant recently acquired digital fashion startup RTFKT Studios to develop non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in-house. In April, the company launched a metaverse sneaker line called RTFKT x Nike Dunk Genesis CryptoKicks.

The .SWOOSH platform is currently in beta and is opening up its registration by the end of November ahead of its first collection drop in 2023.