Benoît Pagotto, visionary RTFKT co-founder and NFT pioneer, passes away at 41

RTFKT co-founder Benoît Pagotto has died at the age of 41, sparking widespread tributes across the NFT and crypto ￰0￱ was known for Nike’s digital arm and one of the Web3’s influential creative ￰1￱ Rodriguez, a French tech executive and founding partner at Avolta Partners, confirmed his death on ￰2￱ described Pagotto’s death as sudden and praised him as super creative, discreet, and humble. Rodriguez’s firm advised RTFKT on its 2021 sale to ￰3￱ to Rodriguez, Pagotto believed that beauty could change the ￰4￱ and fashion communities mourn RTFKT Co-founder Steven Vasilev, RTFKT co-founder, confirmed the death of Pagotto on X, saying the vision, mission, and inspiration Benito gave to the world will live on ￰5￱ Cardillo, Former CTO at RTFKT, wrote his condolences remembering Pagotto as a grumpy Parisian cliche and a genius who would speak his mind with no ￰6￱ hopes that the late will respawn as ravenous.

Visionary, Genius, Mentor, Friend & Brother The vision, mission and inspiration @benitopagotto gave to the world will live on forever. ♾️ 👁️‍🗨️ Heartbroken we lost a legend 💔🕊️ ￰7￱ — Zaptio RTFKT (@Zaptio) October 12, 2025 Benoît Pagotto co-founded RTFKT in 2020 with Vasilev and Chris Le to connect fashion, gaming, and blockchain ￰8￱ studio collaboration with Takashi Murakami and Jeff Staple and the Clone X series soared, among other NFT collections of the last crypto bull run, generating nearly $120 million in lifetime trading volume, according to DeFiLlama ￰9￱ to Greg Solano, the Bored Ape Yacht Club co-founder, Pagotto represented the kindest and funniest people he met in the crypto ￰10￱ recalled the late Pagotto’s offering for help when they were still young in the industry and staying genuine even after ￰11￱ acquired RTFKT in December 2021, bridging its global fashion brand into the Web3 ￰12￱ was the lead creative director at RTFKT, exploring physically linked NFTs , which became a model for other companies to blend blockchain technology with cultural ￰13￱ later maintained his ties with Nike after the 2024 wind-down operations for RTFKT as a Senior Director of Brand and ￰14￱ to Business of Fashion’s BoF 500 list in 2022, the late was recognized for shaping the future of global fashion via innovation in metaverse design and digital ￰15￱ NFT token price jumps by over 420% Similar NFT projects, such as Clone X, have received renewed investor interest, with the project’s price jumping by 21.4% over the past 24 ￰16￱ to Coingecko data, the NFT token is currently trading at 0.19 ETH with 9,155 unique ￰17￱ 24-hour volume has jumped by over 204% to 14.73 ￰18￱ 24-hour sales have risen to 75, representing a 158.6% ￰19￱ RTFKT NFT project has also registered a positive 420.83% change over the past 24 ￰20￱ is currently trading at 0.03 ￰21￱ 24-hour volume has skyrocketed to 8,900.4% to 2.02 ETH, with a total of 74 sales over the past 24 ￰22￱ Ethereum token price has jumped over 8% over the past 24 hours, revealing renewed investor confidence in the ￰23￱ was trading at $4,174.35 at the time of publication, with a 24-hour volume of $60.23 billion, representing over 18% jump from the previous ￰24￱ stock also experienced market shifts, with a 4.17% drop at the time of ￰25￱ stock was trading at $65.22 with a 24-hour average volume of 16.18 million.

Nike’s stock has seen negative investor confidence based on the YTD, which was at -13.81% at the time of ￰26￱ stock initially registered an over 5% rise during the acquisition of the Web3 project in late 2021, showing investor confidence and sensitivity towards crypto-linked project ￰27￱ $50 free to trade crypto when you sign up to Bybit now