Nike leads NFT success by revenue as fashion shines over Pepsi, Time magazine

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The fashion industry’s top NFT projects have outperformed branded projects from Time magazine, Budweiser and Pepsi by revenue, across both the primary and secondary markets, according to new data collected from the Ethereum Blockchain.

Nike, thanks to its new acquisition Rtfkt, has been the most successful by revenue, bringing in $185.3 million. The CloneX collection of avatars accounted for about half of that. The data analysis, seen by Vogue Businesssuggests Nike is ahead of Dolce & Gabbana, Tiffany, Gucci, Adidas and Lacoste.

While individual metrics like these are available via public blockchain records, the performance analysis of large brand NFT projects on crypto analytics platform Dune, created by Stanford student and crypto researcher Noah Levine, has enabled aggregated comparisons of brand projects over time and includes all NFT drops attributed to that brand. Nike’s Rtfkt, for example, has released more than 10 NFT collections. The dashboard also includes information on monthly trading volume and the number of additional crypto transactions each holder has completed.

The 13 brands included in the dashboard, while not a comprehensive list of all branded NFTs, reflect some of the most notable in terms of cultural attention. Among those, the top fashion brands are the only five whose NFT revenue topped $10 million and include comparison to entertainment, media and beverage brands. (The dashboard did not include Louis Vuitton, Prada, Balmain or Burberry, who have also introduced various NFTs.)

This revenue data is readily available given the blockchain’s transparency, but the high numbers — especially for fashion NFTs — raised eyebrows among investors like Castle Island Ventures general partner Nic Carter, who is also the co-founder of blockchain data aggregator Coinmetrics.io. Carter says he “spot-checked” the data upon seeing such high figures, and they appear to be correct. (Levine declined an on-record interview at the request of his employer, Visa, where he is a crypto product intern.)