Why RTFKT and Nike’s Ethereum NFT Artwork Disappeared
Images from multiple Ethereum NFT collections by RTFKT, acquired by Nike, stopped displaying due to a Cloudflare hosting issue. The flagship Clone X and Animus collections showed a black background with a message indicating content restriction. RTFKT's Head of Technology, Samuel Cardillo, stated that Cloudflare mistakenly downgraded to a free plan before the contract ended, causing the display issue. Discussions about infrastructure changes began in December but were delayed. Many NFTs do not store data on-chain, relying on third-party hosting, which can lead to issues if services go offline. Images began to reappear after Cloudflare resolved the contract issue. Cardillo is working to decentralize the collections using AR Drive to prevent future downtime, requiring approximately 200GB of storage at an estimated cost of $2,800. RTFKT was shut down by Nike in December 2022.
