Last December, two major sports brands announced their respective NFT strategies—Nike chose to "cut losses" and shut down its virtual sneaker studio RTFKT; at the same time, Adidas went against the trend and officially launched the three-year-in-the-making ALTS digital avatar series. In the same month, top global consumer brands surprisingly took completely opposite directions.

This divergence is not an isolated case. Over the past few years, almost every leading consumer brand has experimented with digital assets. But now, the market is showing a clear divide—some are pulling back, while others are increasing their investments. This reflects that the entire industry’s understanding of Web3 business models is still in the exploration stage, with no unified success template.