https://ift.tt/3mINNRG freezes stolen NFTs worth $2.2 Million

TL;DR Breakdown

• Cybergoons made away with NFTs worth $2.2 M from art gallery owner Todd Kramer yesterday.
• An unauthorized person transferred the pieces from his wallet, but OpenSea confirmed freezing them.

Yesterday, Art gallery owner Todd Kramer lost his BAYC NFTs stash to hackers. The pieces have a value of $2.2 M. Luckily, OpenSea intervened and froze those assets to stop the goons from selling them.

OpenSea freezes stolen BAYC NFTs

The world’s largest NFT trading platform, OpenSea, has announced the freezing of sixteen BAYC NFTs after hackers reportedly made away with them from Todd Kramer. Kramer lost 16 NFT pieces that have a value of 615 Ethereum tokens or $2.2 M.

To his advantage, the pieces are not tradable on OpenSea anymore. This aid was the best help that Kramer has received since the incident, as many NTF community members were cruel to him.

His trading account toddkramer. eth posted a series of tweets explaining the loss of the treasured pieces. OpenSea came to his aid but received a backlash from multiple tweets questioning how the platform could freeze the assets.

He had posted a tweet explaining that he lost his NFT holdings to a phishing scammer via clicking on a bad link. However, he removed his post due to the pressure from the harsh reactions of the crypto community. Today, he posted another tweet to express the surprise that he got regarding the cruelty of twitters.

While Kramer has a slight chance of repossessing his holdings, his ordeal highlights the need for people to have proper operational security measures for crypto holdings. Yesterday he also posted a tweet claiming to have learned a lesson and advised people to use cold wallets rather than the popular hot wallets.

OpenSea receives backlash for doing ‘good’

Many replied with mixed reactions after OpenSea revealed that it would aid Kramer by freezing the stolen assets. Some were happy, but others expressed concern over the platform’s governance. Others pointed out that this is absurd since it does not signify decentralization, thus making such a functionality against the crypto spirit.

A tweet from a famous developer Grady Booch read that he was shocked due to the intervention by OpenSea. His comment explained that the core idea of the cryptosphere is to do away with such interventions and OpenSea defies it.

Kramer’s misfortune is not very new to the NFT world. It has happened before to other NFT collectors. On Dec 26, 2021, another collector named Bergpay. eth was revealed to have suffered a similar ordeal to Kramer. He said that he lost seven NFTs from an ETH hot wallet and the perpetrator also changed the ENS domain.

On Nov 30, 2021, another Twitter user named friesframe also announced the frustrations NFT collectors get after losing their pieces. This account confirmed that its owner had also lost NFTs from a hot wallet. However, OpenSea is yet to freeze the assets from Bergpay and friesflame, which sparks further controversy about their intervention system.