Nike Slammed With Class Action Lawsuit Over Alleged ’Brazen Crypto Rug Pull’

Swoosh or swindle? Nike faces legal fire as investors claim the sportswear giant executed a textbook Web3 exit scam.

Plaintiffs allege Nike’s NFT project—heavily marketed with athlete endorsements—abruptly collapsed after draining millions from collectors. The complaint cites deleted Discord channels, frozen withdrawals, and a trail of broken roadmap promises.

Legal experts warn this could become a landmark case for celebrity-backed crypto ventures—especially those that treat digital assets like limited-edition sneaker drops. Meanwhile, Wall Street analysts shrug: ’First time?’

RTFKT then announced it was shutting down in December 2024, just three years after Nike acquired it. No reason for the shutdown was provided.

RTFKT Head of Tech Samuel Cardillo declined to comment. Cardillo has publicly referred to himself as “the last man standing” at the Nike subsidiary.

Blockworks reached out to Nike as well as RTFKT cofounders Chris Le and Benoit Pagotto for comment. Le’s Linkedin shows that he left RTFKT and Nike in January 2025, but Pagotto’s profile still shows him as employed at Nike and RTFKT.

Last week, a day before the lawsuit was filed, the art for the CloneX RTFKT NFTs disappeared overnight due to an issue with its Cloudflare hosting plan. Cardillo later said the issue was due to an error, not an unpaid bill. The collection’s art was then subsequently restored. Cloudflare did not reply to Blockworks’ previous request for comment.

On Monday, Cardillo said the CloneX NFTs had migrated (off Cloudflare) to Arweave for “permanent storage.”

If this lawsuit progresses, it won’t be the only class-action suit about an NFT “rug pull.” The class-action lawsuit against Logan Paul’s CryptoZoo NFT game remains ongoing as well.

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