OpenSea Freezes Stolen $2.2M Bored Apes

NFT marketplace OpenSea has frozen 16 Bored Ape and Mutant Ape non-fungible tokens, which were reportedly stolen from a New York gallery operator yesterday.

In total, 1 Clonex, 7 Mutant Ape Yacht Club, and 8 Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs were stolen, currently worth approximately 615 ETH ($2.28 million), and are now untradeable on OpenSea.

The toddkramer.eth account, which is linked to the Ross+Kramer art gallery in New York, posted a series of tweets detailing the 16 NFTs stolen from its hot wallet and pleading for help from OpenSea and the NFT community. While the NFT community is often not sympathetic to the plight of traders, OpenSea froze trade in stolen collectibles.

@gidwellsoon@Tob_Opensea@j1mmy I got hacked. Ask for help.

Ape 2771

Ape 6416

Ape 1623

Ape 1708

Ape 8214

Ape 7528

Ape 9988

Ape 9410

Mutant 25057

Mutant 11177

Mutant 28752

Mutant 24718

Mutant 2436

Mutant 9278

Mutant 2434

Clonex 6801

— toddkramer.eth (@toddkramer1) December 30, 2021

The freezing of buying and selling of these NFTs has some traders decrying the lack of decentralization, one of the cherished aspects of the crypto industry. Twitter commenter kw.sol said, "Who can freeze these NFTs? It feels anti-crypto to have a third party do it, and ideally they shouldn't be doing it."

Famed software engineer Grady Booch addressed the lack of decentralization on the matter, commenting:

“What a fool of me. Here, I think code is law, and one of the philosophies of cryptocurrencies is to remove the possibility of any centralized intervention.

A hot wallet is a cryptocurrency software wallet — most commonly MetaMask — that connects to the Internet as long as the device on which it is installed is connected to the Internet.

Kramer said on Twitter that he lost his stash after a phishing scam entered his hot wallet after he clicked on a malicious link.

While Kramer has little recourse in recovering stolen NFTs, his experience highlights the importance of sound operational security (opsec) as a cryptocurrency trader or NFT collector. He tweeted yesterday that he had learned a lesson about opsec dealing with valuable cryptocurrencies:

"Lesson learned. Use hard wallets..."

A hard wallet, also known as a cold wallet, is an encrypted wallet that doesn't connect to the internet until it's manually plugged into a computer, and then each transaction needs to be approved using a physical button. Hard wallets are better at keeping crypto assets safe than hot wallets.

What happened to Kramer is not a unique experience for NFT traders, especially those familiar with the Bored Ape Yacht Club series.

On December 26, NFT collector bergpay.eth stated that he suffered a similar fate as Kramer, with 5 Jungle Freaks and 2 Sandbox NFTs stolen from his Ethereum wallet, and his ENS domain name was transferred to a new one. address.

On Nov. 30, the Twitter account friesframe summed up the dismay of NFT owners when their favorite items were stolen from their hot wallets.

OpenSea has not frozen NFTs for bergpay or friesframe yet.

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