Adidas Teams with Digital Artist Fewocious for NFT-Gated Physical Sneakers: Details

Adidas has struck a partnership with Web3 artist famous by the name of ‘Fewocious' to be part of its new sneaker collection. The shoes from this collection are tied to an NFT redemption pass, called the ‘Trefoil Flower'. The holders of this NFT pass will get access to purchase custom-designed physical sneakers called Adidas Originals Campus 00s. With this, the international athleisure brand has taken another step into its Web3 exploration journey heating up the competition for its rivals.

Based in Seattle, US, Victor Langlois aka Fewocious is a 20-year-old NFT artist who started selling his digital artwork via Twitter with each piece priced at $5 (roughly Rs. 410) in December 2020. By June 2021, Langlois' work had spread like wild fire with buyers reportedly having flooded Christie's online auction house to purchase his digital artwork.

Adidas announced its collaboration with the NFT artist on June 13, giving a sneak peek into what shoes from this special collection with look like.

“Owners of the Trefoil Flower Mint Pass will be given the exclusive opportunity to freely redeem the artist-designed physical adidas Originals Campus 00's sneaker later in the summer. Upon redemption, the Trefoil Flower Mint Pass will be upgraded to a digital twin of the adidas Originals Campus 00s sneaker, which will become interoperable as virtual wearable within the upcoming avatar projects: FewoWorld Fewo's & ALTS by adidas,” the 73-year-old sportswear company wrote in a blog post.

Each pair of the physical sneaker will be embedded with a scannable NFC tag that will link the shoes to the corresponding NFT pass.

Fewocious also shared his excitement about this collaboration with his 136,000+ followers on Twitter.

“This is truly a dream come true,” the digital artist wrote, teasing his followers with a colourful, animated video of Adidas' upcoming collection.

The Trefoil Flower NFT pass will be available for purchase on OpenSea NFT marketplace starting June 22. A total of 4,500 editions of this NFT pass will be released by Adidas and Fewocious.

Adidas will begin shipping orders for these sneakers in September, before which it will allow mint pass holders to burn or destroy these NFT passes. The Trefoil Flower NFT passes will first be sold in a three-staged pre-sale and then a public mint. Adidas is offering these NFTs at a “discounted” price of ETH 0.2 or $350 (roughly Rs. 27,800) for the holders of Adidas' existing Alts Decos and Soles NFT.

“Trefoil Flower Mint Pass Holders get access to claim one adidas Originals x FEWOCiOUS Campus 00s physical sneaker and the mint pass will be replaced by a Digital Twin NFT that will be product linked, bound to your sneaker activated upon receiving,” the company's official blog noted.

Adidas has been trying to establish itself as an early adopter of the Web3 for some time now. In April this year, the brand announced the launch of its ALTS Dynamic NFT collection, as part of expanding its ‘Into The Metaverse' initiative that was kickstarted in 2021.

A new research report claims that the utility of NFTs in the Web3 world is the top reason why tech-savvy investors are turning their attention towards buying digital collectibles. The second most major reason why NFTs appeal to the buyers is the element of long-term profits that they hold.