The death knell of the NFT era?

The death knell of the NFT era?

Just weeks ago, the abrupt cancellation of NFT Paris, once a flagship event for the space, hinted at something deeper than a bad year.

Now, two major institutional exits are confirming the shift:

• Nifty Gateway, Gemini’s 2019 crown jewel, is entering withdrawal-only mode and will shut down in a month.
  At its peak, it processed millions in monthly volume during the 2020/21 boom.

• Nike’s exit from RTFKT (December 2025) was a quiet but definitive step away from digital collectibles as a standalone business.

For large institutions, the verdict seems clear: the “NFTs as a business model” experiment has run its course.

But was it a failure, or a phase?

Because beneath the hype cycle, something important happened:

• Major brands tested blockchain at scale
• New models of digital ownership were explored
• Communities formed around verifiable scarcity
• The concept of tokenized access entered the mainstream

In other words: the speculative layer may be fading, but the infrastructure lessons remain.

The real question isn’t “Are NFTs dead?”
It’s:

• What survives the hype cycle?
• Where does tokenization actually create value?
• Which sectors will adopt these primitives without the speculation layer?

Luxury goods. Ticketing. Identity. Governance. Access rights.
The next wave may look very different and far more useful.

At OffChain, we’re not mourning the end of a trend.
We’re watching the maturation of a technology.
Cause we love new forms of ownership and coordination.

Curious to hear your take: Was the NFT boom a dead end or a necessary step forward? 🧡