Clone X and Animus NFTs Go Dark After Cloudflare Glitch

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Nike's Clone X and Animus NFTs Go Dark After Cloudflare Glitch

Written by Aaron S.,

Editor-In-Chief

Last Updated: April 25, 2025

Key Takeaways

RTFKT’s NFT artwork briefly disappeared after a Cloudflare account downgrade disrupted hosting;
The missing images highlighted the risks of storing NFT files off-chain through third-party services;
RTFKT is now migrating Clone X and Animus images to Arweave’s permanent storage to prevent future issues.

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Nike's Clone X and Animus NFTs Go Dark After Cloudflare Glitch

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RTFKT, the digital brand Nike shut down in December 2024, ran into trouble on April 24 after images from its Ethereum ETH $2,947.01 non-fungible tokens (NFTs) suddenly disappeared.

Collectors noticed that pictures from collections, such as Clone X and Animus, were no longer showing.

Instead, they saw a black background with a short message stating, "This content has been restricted. Using Cloudflare’s basic service in this manner is a violation of the Terms of Service".

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The issue was not with the NFTs themselves but with how the images were stored. Since the files were kept off-chain, they relied on a third-party service—Cloudflare—for delivery.

According to Samuel Cardillo, who led RTFKT’s tech team, the problem started when Cloudflare mistakenly downgraded their account to the free version.

Cardillo explained that the team had been planning to move to a different system since December 2024. However, the decision was delayed, and the migration did not begin until April. Once Cloudflare fixed the account issue, the NFT images started to come back online, but it was clear that a longer-term fix was needed.

In an April 24 post on X, Cardillo stated that he is currently working with AR Drive, a tool that connects to the Arweave network. Arweave offers permanent storage, where users pay once and keep their files online for good.

The goal is to migrate all images for Clone X and Animus to Arweave by the end of April.

Meanwhile, Dead Bruv, the team behind a Solana SOL $126.99 -based NFT project, plans to sell 100,000 NFTs from their Meatbags series. What is it for? Read the full story.