Seth Green’s Stolen BAYC Is Returned: Report

Seth Green’s stolen BAYC is back home after being stolen a few months ago as we reported previously in our cryptocurrency news.

The heist generated a huge deal of interest as the NFT character is featured as the star of the show White Horse Tavern. Seth Green’s stolen BAYC was returned after the phishing attack on May 17. Green paid 165 ETH which is about $300,000 at the current rate for the return of the prized NFT. Green noted that Fred is back home on Twitter. He renamed BAYC #8398 as Fred Simian it was being featured as the cartoon protagonist in the new show White House TAvern. The trailer premiered at Gary Vaynerchuk’s NFT convention and featured Bored Ape #8398 as the star of the show. Since the NFT was stolen, Green lost the right to use it in his show and there was a lot of interest and speculation about the motive behind the heist. He added:

“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 tweeted that he lost 4 NFTs to a phishing attack and the stolen digital artwork included Mutant Ape Yacht Club, Doodles, and Bored Ape Yacht Club. The actor tweeted to inform us that he was able to identify and contact the NFT collector Mr. Cheese who held his stolen BAYC and requested him to return the NFT and threatened a lawsuit if they didn’t. Mr. Cheesam is going by the Moniker DarkWing84 and said they had no intention to return the NFT that they bought for $200K. They claimed to be unaware that the Bored Ape NFT was obtained initailly.

The return of the Bored ape was initially reported a few days ago on some blockchain transaction involving the item and claimed that blockchain records show that Green sent 165 Ether to Mr. Cheese for the return of the NFT. The transfer of the NFT to Green’s account took place via a crypto escrow platform called NFT Trading. The actor paid 165 Ether from the same wallet that he used to buy the BAYC. Minutes after they transferred the coin, they showed up in the wallet connected to DarkWing84 that belonged to Mr.Cheese.

The theft of the NFT launched a debate over the intellectual property rights and the ownership of NFT in the relevant circles and there was a huge deal of buzz and speculation about what will happen to the Green’s new show where the NFT was the main character. In another case, the Singapore court froze the NFT sale used as collateral for the loan of a lender on the NFTFi platform. When the borrower was unable to repay the loan on maturity the lender took ownership of the NFT but the court blocked the sale until the ownership issue is resolved.