Nike's RTFKT COO Nikhil Gopalani Bounces Back After Major NFT Heist

The NFT world got quite a shock. Nikhil Gopalani, Nike's RTFKT COO, was hacked. Bad. It happened in January 2023. The attack was clever, sophisticated even. Gone were NFTs worth about $173,000. His wallet? Left with a mere $0.11 in Ethereum. Brutal.

The theft was methodical. Multiple accounts. The hacker stripped away 19 CloneX NFTs—that's over $138,000 right there. Then went the 19 RTFKT Animus Eggs valued around $20,200. Not stopping, they took 17 Loot Pods, 18 RTKFT Space Pods, and 11 CryptoKicks too. All valuable.

Gopalani wasn't exactly a rookie in tech matters. Finance degree from Ohio State. Fourteen years working with data and analytics. Still got hit. After the hack, he seemed surprisingly philosophical. He even wished well to those who unknowingly bought his stolen digital treasures.

What happened exactly? It's not entirely clear. Some security folks think he might've given away private info to someone pretending to be from Apple. Kind of surprising how these scams still work. Remember—legit companies don't ask for PINs or private keys over phone or email. Ever.

Life goes on. Gopalani stayed at Nike RTFKT as Sr. Director/COO. He's also doing the angel investor thing with his Ambition Venture Fund. The whole mess shows that even big names in the digital space aren't immune. Nobody is, really.

One of the stolen pieces—a Murakami CloneX NFT—ended up with someone using the handle lyx.eth. They claimed innocence. Had been hunting for that specific NFT for six months, they said. Just bad luck, apparently.