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At the beginning of this month, actor and producer Seth Green fell for a phishing scam. This caused him to lose a large number of NFTs and messed up the plot of his upcoming animated series.
On May 8, a con artist stole four NFTs from Green by using a phishing scheme. When Green found out about the “lost” non fungibles, he immediately rushed to Twitter to voice his disappointment. He shared the news that a bored ape, a mutant ape, and a doodle had all met their end. At least when it concerns his specific wallet.
What makes this case uniques is that Seth was planning to make an animated series featuring the specific NFT characters he owned. As you may know, owning an NFT gives you full rights to its use, but now, tables have turned. And by a great margin.
Seth Green’s NFTs change hands
After Green inadvertently connected to a phishing site, his NFT holdings started to quickly evaporate. Today, Seth Green’s wallet is stolen from him, and the actor is no longer in possession of it.
Whilst Green was collecting all his Twitter might to find the scammers, another collector has unknowingly paid more than $200,000 for this same stolen wallet. The new owner has then parked the wallet in the GBE Vault, where it continues to be preserved together with the NFTs on it to this day.
Green has spent the last three days sending tweets to @DarkWing84 (the new owner) in the hopes of regaining ownership of his BAYCs. On Monday, he urged the individual to “figure things out between us” in a plea for goodwill and hopes to resolve the case.
DarkWing84 didn’t respond to a tweet that explained how the ape was taken without permission, so it’s not clear if they knew this when they bought it.
In the wake of the dissemination of this piece of news, Green took to Twitter in order to address concerns that the disappearance of the monkey would have an impact on the way his work would go in the days and weeks to come.
To summarise the current state of events, the ownership of the Bored Ape has recently been transferred to a new owner, and as a result, the new owner is now responsible for managing the commercial rights associated with using the Bored Ape. Seth Green has none.
OpenSea, which is a marketplace for non-fungible tokens, said that it has frozen the tokens, just as it had done in the past when it was informed that money had been stolen. To date, the Solana based Magic Eden is the only NFT marketplace that hasn’t been hacked, or involved in hacking instances.
As a precaution, a label that reads “unusual activity” may be seen on each of Green’s four NFTs. Until now NFT owners have filed three separate lawsuits against OpenSea in an effort to get their money back. Because of the phishing attacks, the owners of these NFTs have also suffered the loss of Bored Apes.
Effect of the scam on Seth Green’s upcoming animated series
Seth Green, the co-creator of Adult Swim’s Robot Chicken, has been duped out of many NFTs, which might jeopardise his planned hybrid live-action/animated series White Horse Tavern.
The new series was announced at the NFT conference VeeCon. It was based on characters from Green’s collection of NFTs, like Fred Simian, a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT who would be the maincharacter of the series.
Due to the loss of the NFT, Fred Simian’s likeness and use rights are now owned by someone else. If Green’s programme were to be shown now, it would breach the copyright of the current owner. Even while it’s not yet certain whether Green’s BoredApe will return or not, the actor has already started making public pleas for the restoration of his NFT.
Justin Bieber is another renowned owner of BAYC NFTs, so let’s hope that Justin won’t fall for anything similar.
