German sports brand Adidas’s first NFT drop fetched a whopping $23.5m (5,924 ETH) with secondary sales on the platform Opensea driving the NFT trading volume to $42.6m or about 11,200 ETH (£32.2m) at the time of writing.

Those behind the ‘Into the Metaverse’ experience admitted on Twitter that it had not gone completely smoothly, as some customers experienced difficulties while attempting to purchase NFTs priced at 0.798 ETH. 

“To achieve our shared goal, we limited tokens/transaction and transactions/wallet. To evade bots, we announced the time as near to the drop as possible. To warn about the risks of evolving Web3, we worked with our partners to create educational material, FAQ and a Discord,” said the company.

“Even with all the measures we took, it wasn’t perfect. But, for the first time, thousands of new adopters experienced the thrills and risks of Web3. We’ll never stop learning,” Adidas added.

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Adidas to refund lost gas fees

The German company stated that users who lost gas during the sale’s Early Access pause would be refunded “as soon as we complete the process of checking all transactions”.

“Those who felt hurt by gas in the public sale, we are learning from it,” added the company. “Those who think we’re going to pocket the money and run, that’s not Web3. Have faith. Those who felt the time zone wasn’t in your favour, our journey here is just beginning.” 

The company said the drop was “the beginning of Into the Metaverse, not the end” and that it would have more to share in the new year. 

Nike goes in the metaverse

The Adidas drop came after rival sportswear brand Nike announced the acquisition of virtual designer RTFKT to launch branded NFT collectables.

RTFKT produces “next-generation” digital collectables and sneakers for the metaverse, using game engines, NFTs and blockchain authentication to do so. 

RTFKT is behind the NFT project drops CloneX, 20,000 next-gen avatars NFTs created in partnership with artist Takashi Murakami. On the OpenSea platform, approximately 16,600 pieces generated a trading volume of $95.3m (24,700 ETH) in a few days.

Nike had pre-empted such projects when it reported its fiscal 2022 financial results for the quarter ended August 31, 2021, stating that it would make “investments in digital marketing to support heightened digital demand”.

Nike had reported revenues of $12.2bn, up by 16% compared with the previous year, and and up by 12% on a currency-neutral basis. Nike Brand Digital sales increased by 29%, or 25% on a currency-neutral basis.

These results were considered proof of a “digital advantage that fuels our brand momentum” by Nike’s president and CEO, John Donahoe.