Seth Green recently had to put the production of his upcoming NFT TV show ‘White House Tavern’ on pause after its Bored Ape protagonist (and its all-important IP) was swiped from his crypto wallet last month in a phishing scam. Fortunately, and after weeks of tracking the ape’s whereabouts, the actor was able to retrieve the asset – meaning production can now recommence.
Green kicked-off efforts to retrieve his Bored Ape #8398 (a.k.a Fred Simian) weeks ago, when Green initially threatened to sue the ape’s new owner, who went by the name of Mr. Cheese. Given the lack of regulation in the space, and the fact that they claimed to have purchased the stolen ape in ‘good faith’, Mr Cheese was unmoved by these threats. Negotiations eventually led to Green forking out 65 ETH (or approximately $297,000) to reclaim Fred.
As the asset remained marked with a ‘suspicious activity’ label on OpenSea (which disallows it from being bought or sold on the marketplace), the transaction was done by way of a crypto escrow platform ‘NFT Trader’.
Mr Cheese had reportedly bought Fred Simian for $200,000, meaning they had made around $100,000 in profit from the morally questionable piece of business. After receiving the funds, they then added fuel to the accusation-fire by immediately transferring the funds to a different account.
Although Green is yet to give an update on the production of ‘White House Tavern’, it is likely that his reclaiming of Fred’s IP will mean that things can be picked up where they were left.