NFT marketplace OpenSea is currently taking steps to ensure that an NFT collector can get their stolen Bored Ape NFTs worth $2.2 million back.
New York-based art curator and NFT collector, who goes by Toddkramer.eth on Twitter, revealed that their collection of 16 Bored Ape NFTs was stolen in an alleged phishing scam. According to their tweet, they clicked on the link of a genuine-looking NFT dApp, which later turned out to be a phishing attack.
I been hacked.
all my apes gone. this just sold please help me— toddkramer.eth (@toddkramer1) December 30, 2021
Precisely, one Clonex, seven Mutant Ape Yacht Club, and eight Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs, worth about 615 ETH ($2.28 million) at press time, were hacked from their wallet on December 30. Toddkramer.eth has since sought help from OpenSea and the NFT community to reclaim their NFTs.
While the NFT community was largely unsympathetic towards the victim, Toddkramer.eth later tweeted that OpenSea has frozen all the Bored Apes and is looking to return them to the owner. However, the NFT marketplace faced backlash on the move, arguing that such freeze of NFTs by third parties goes against the core principles of decentralization.
Who was able to freeze the nfts? Feels pretty anti crypto to be asking third parties to do this and ideally they shouldn’t be able to. This was just extremely poor opsec on your part. True decentralized ownership no one should be able to step in. Good luck.
— kw.sol ◎ (@Forculus) December 30, 2021
Toddkramer.eth later added that they have learned the hard lesson and will use a hard wallet from now on.
NFTs have become the latest target of phishing attacks with several cases emerging from the corners of the community. Cybersecurity company PhishLabs recently claimed a ten times increase in phishing attacks on crypto exchanges in the first half of 2021 compared to last year estimates
Just recently, an NFT investor named bergpay.eth tweeted that he was scammed out of 5 Jungle Freaks NFTs from their wallet this Sunday. Last week, another investor, who goes by AhChooo, revealed someone allegedly stole one Mutant Ape and one Cool Cat NFTs from their wallet.
