The Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) collection of 10,000 NFTs has now generated $1 billion in total trading volume. CryptoPunks, which first entered the scene a few years before BAYC, is still the NFT leader with $2.9 billion in recorded sales.
Bored Apes are now owned by dozens of celebrities, including Eminem, Steve Aoki, Post Malone, Gunna, Jimmy Fallon, and Snoop Dogg. The price increase over the years has made the cool ape NFTs nigh unattainable for the general public.
Since December last year there have been a number of cases of BAYC NFTs being stolen. The thefts have typically happened by hackers scamming bored ape owners through email phishing, thereby gaining access to their crypto wallets.
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Ironically, the same owners and fans of crypto and NFTs that greatly favor the unregulated crypto market have sought out centralized entities for help.
“I have been hacked. All my apes gone. This just sold please help me.”
Wrote the owner of an art gallery in the New York City, Todd Kramer. As reported by ARTNews, the tweet, written on the 30th of December, has since been deleted.
Due to fraud, the gallery owner lost 15 NFTs valued at $2.2 million, four of which were Bored Apes. The scammer has since been seen reselling Kramer’s NFTs.
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With the help of OpenSea’s team, and the charitable efforts of buyers, some of the stolen NFTs have been traced and returned back to Kramer.
On the Flipside
- Should the market trends continue, BAYC might surpass the total sales volume of CryptoPunks this year.
- The crypto community has been ridiculed for not taking smart security measures and ‘allowing’ such thefts to happen.
