Benoît Pagotto, the French tech entrepreneur who co-founded blockchain-based virtual sneaker and fashion platform RTFKT, has passed away at the age of 41.

Steven Vasilev, who established RTFKT along with Pagotto and Chris Le, confirmed the news of Pagotto’s passing on X on Oct. 12.

RTFKT formed in 2020 when Pagotto, Le and Vasilev — all avid gamers — came together with the idea of creating a brand that would create and sell virtual sneakers. The company gained fame in the NFT world the following year after selling $3.1 million worth of sneaker NFTs created with digital artist Fewocious in just seven minutes. Not long after, RTFKT worked with artist Takashi Murakami to release a series of NFT avatars that routinely traded for thousands of dollars on the secondary market and would serve as the foundation for an eventual ecosystem of digital goods.

At the time, NFT prices were surging as crypto assets of all kinds soared in value and the idea of the metaverse gained popularity, with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg serving as its most vocal cheerleader, even changing his company’s name to Meta. NFT proponents argued the blockchain-based assets would be the standard goods traded in the metaverse marketplace of the future. Pagotto was among them, pitching virtual fashion as an opportunity even bigger than streetwear.

After growing up in the working-class suburbs on the outskirts of Paris, Pagotto began his career in retail working for the Parisian concept store Colette. He later transitioned into marketing and worked at a variety of agencies before landing at the esports company Fnatic. He was intimately familiar with both fashion and the amounts his peers were willing to spend on digital assets, leading to his belief that RTFKT could be a sizable business.

In 2021, Nike, which had been building its own roadmap for virtual products acquired the brand for an undisclosed sum, announcing the deal in a statement that placed RTFKT’s name among its roster of megabrands, which also includes Jordan and Converse. The next year Nike and RTFKT released their first virtual sneakers together. Pagotto also joined the BoF 500 in 2022.

But the NFT craze went as quickly as it came, failing to gain mainstream appeal. Nike and RTFKT’s collaboration, meanwhile, was slow to release new products. While Nike — then under the leadership of chief executive John Donahoe — continued to invest in digital ventures, launching a platform for virtual goods called .Swoosh in 2022, the company would soon face larger struggles as it grew overly dependent on a handful of retro sneakers that started to see cooling demand, while critics said it had wandered too far from its purpose of creating new innovations to help athletes compete.

In 2024, Donahoe stepped down and was ultimately succeeded by Nike veteran Elliott Hill, who swiftly began restructuring the organisation. At the end of the year, RTFKT announced that it would wind down operations.

“The vision, mission and inspiration @benitopagotto gave to the world will live on forever,” Vasilev wrote on X on Oct.12. “Heartbroken we lost a legend.”