Benoît Pagotto, co-founder of digital fashion studio RTFKT, has reportedly died at the age of 41, according to confirmations from colleagues.
Philippe Rodriguez, a French tech executive and long-time collaborator, first shared reported Pagotto’s “sudden” death on LinkedIn early Sunday in Paris.
Pagotto was “super creative, discreet and modest” and “passionate but always reasonable,” reads a translation of Rodriguez’s message.
“He believed that beauty could change the world,” Rodriguez wrote.
Tributes from close friends and colleagues quickly filled the crypto Twitter sphere.
RTFKT co-founder Steven Vasilev responded to the news on X: to write that “the vision, mission and inspiration [Benoît] given to the world will live forever.”
Former RTFKT CTO Samuel Cardillo remembered Pagotto as “a cranky Parisian cliché, a bastard and a genius” who spoke his mind “without filters.” To Cardillo, Pagotto was “a unique human being,” adding that he hoped his dear friend “would come back as a tough, mean crow.”
Bored Ape Yacht Club co-founder Greg Solano, known online as Garga.eth, wrote that Pagotto was “one of the kindest and funniest people I met in crypto,” recalled how he offered help “when we were nobody” and remained genuine even after success. Solano added that he would miss Pagotto’s “big, boisterous laugh that you could hear from the other side of a restaurant.”
Defining moments
Known for merging luxury design, gaming and crypto culture, Pagotto has helped transform RTFKT into one of the defining digital asset brands of the last bull run. Founded in 2020 with Chris Le and Vasilev, the studio rose to prominence through virtual sneakers and collectibles, including the Clone X × Takashi Murakami series.
Nike bought RTFKT in December 2021, and under Pagotto’s creative direction, explored physically linked NFTs and digital drops that bridged sneaker culture and the chain’s identity. Although Nike started phase out RTFKT activities late last year, Pagotto continued to speak publicly on behalf of the brand.
In April, images for several of his Ethereum-based collections disappeared briefly after a cloud hosting error disrupted off-chain storage connections.
The issue, later described by RTFKT’s then chief technology officer Cardillo as a “temporary infrastructure problem,” exposed how centralized dependencies were undermining the sustainability that RTFKT once promised.
In the same month, RTFKT and its parent company were hit by a $5 million class action lawsuit from NFT holders who accused Nike of misleading buyers about the long-term value of their tokens.
The federal complaint alleged that Nike promoted RTFKT’s NFTs as premium investments and then abandoned them by closing the studio and ending support, amounting to what plaintiffs called a “soft back pull.”
Declutter has reached out to Nike, RTFKT’s co-founders, and close associates for confirmation and comment.
At the time of writing it is Declutter has not found a single official obituary or civil registry notice from the French press. The cause of death has not been announced.