American actor Seth Green reclaimed his stole bored ape avatar NFT by spending over $300,000. The actor announced on a Twitter Space chatroom that his much-loved Bored Ape #8398 finally “came back home.” Green is an actor, producer, writer and director. His film debut came with a role in the comedy-drama film The Hotel New Hampshire.
On May 17, the actor took to Twitter and said that his NFTs including a Bored Ape, two Mutant Apes, and a Doodle have all been stolen. “Well frens it happened to me. Got phished and had 4NFT stolen,” he wrote.
Out of the four stolen NFTs the loss of the Bored Ape #8398 hit the hardest, and for an important reason. Green is making a new TV show “White Horse Tavern” around a cartoon creature where he was supposed to introduce #8398. However, with the loss of NFT, the actor could not use it for commercial purposes. According to the rules set by Yuga Labs, the creators of BAYC NFTs, only NFT owners can use the owned apes for commercial purposes. This means that the fate of his show was thrown into jeopardy.
“I bought that ape in July 2021, and have spent the last several months developing and exploiting the IP to make it into the star of this show,” Green said in an interview with entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk. “Then days before — his name is Fred by the way — days before he’s set to make his world debut, he’s literally kidnapped.”
This scam took place when Green clicked on a malicious link that led him to a malicious NFT minting website and his digital assets were quickly stolen. Things took a u-turn after a collector named DarkWing84 purchased Green’s stolen NFT for $200,000. The actor threatened legal action against DarkWing84.
However, the transaction records now indicate that Green had to pay over 165 Ether to get his stolen NFT back. Although it is not immediately clear what convinced DarkWing84 to return the NFT to its initial owner.
BAYC NFTs are a popular collection of 10,000 unique bored apes created by Yuga Labs. This collection has seen billions of dollars in sales to date, as per dappradar.com metrics. Celebrities were quick to join the ape ‘frenzy’. Jimmy Fallon and Paris Hilton showed off their ape avatars on national TV. Eminem was quick to buy rapper ape avatar NFT. Shaq made his ape his Twitter profile picture. Pop stars like Ozzy, and Justin Bieber also bought ape NFTs.
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