Nike Awarded Patent to Tokenize Shoes on Ethereum

Nike, one of the largest fitness and sport brands in the world, is embracing the shifting technological paradigm as they seek to make shoes named CryptoKicks that are digitized on a blockchain. The patent gives them the right to create unique digital assets and a shoe ID for a pair of shoes sold by the company in the form of a Non Fungible Token (NFT), December 11, 2019.

Immutable Footwear Records

One of the biggest companies in the world turning their eyes to the cryptocurrency space to utilise the value proposition offered by smart contracts is not something that can be easily ignored. Nike’s plans to tokenize their shoes and create an Ethereum based digital asset for each pair is revolutionary at worst.

Each CryptoKick will be unique and have different attributes across style, material, family, heat, colour, and many other criteria.

Nike will run a middleware server that connects to a host of various blockchain networks like Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Ethereum. And while the company does not single out Ethereum, examples of situations throughout the patent point towards their inevitable tokenization over the only major platform that has NFTs enabled.

In order to receive your Nike NFT – CryptoKicks – a customer needs to set up a locker address to keep their tokens safe. While it isn’t mandatory, there is an option for the customer to register their NFT with their personal ID that resides with Nike. The lack of enforcement for the linkage is a glimpse into the fact that Nike understands the core ethos of this space.

Smart Contracts and Digital Collectibles

The conception and subsequent success of open finance over smart contract platforms has led to a popular narrative that the likes of Ethereum are meant for finance. Nike’s move discredits the fact that finance is the only real use for the smart contracts.

Nike fully expects CryptoKicks to become a liquid market over exchanges, with people exchanging their NFTs for crypto or fiat. The company also hinted that CryptoKicks may be able to spawn “CollaboKick” which would effectively be offspring to the CryptoKick with different attributes relative to the parent.

It should also be noted that while Nike has been awarded this patent, it doesn’t indicate they will be implementing this in the future.