NFT marketplace OpenSea has frozen sixteen Bored Ape and Mutant Ape nonfungible tokens (NFT) later they were reportedly stolen yesterday from a New York fine art gallery operator.

In total, one Clonex, seven Mutant Ape Yacht Order, and eight Bored Ape Yacht Order NFTs currently valued at nearly 615 ETH ($2.28 million) were stolen and are now not able to be traded on OpenSea.

The toddkramer.eth account, which links to the Ross+Kramer Art Gallery in New York, fired off a serial of tweets detailing the xvi NFTs that were stolen from his hot wallet and pleading with OpenSea and the NFT community for help. While the NFT community was ofttimes unsympathetic to the trader'south plight, OpenSea froze trading on the stolen items.

The freeze on buying and selling the NFTs take some traders decrying a lack of decentralization, 1 of the cherished aspects of the crypto industry. One Twitter commenter kw.sol said, "Who was able to freeze the n? Feels pretty anti crypto to be asking third parties to do this and ideally they shouldn't be able to."

Famed software engineer Grady Booch chimed in well-nigh the lack of decentralization in this instance when he commented:

"Silly me. And here I thought that the code is the law and that one of the very ideas of cryptocurrencies was the elimination of any possibility of centralized intervention.

A hot wallet is a blazon of cryptocurrency software wallet that is connected to the internet — nearly commonly MetaMask — whenever the device it is installed on is connected.

Kramer tweeted that he lost his drove through a phishing scam that gained access to his hot wallet afterwards he clicked on a malicious link. He deleted the tweet following the harsh vitriol in the comments. Kramer most recently tweeted on December. 31 that he was surprised by the reaction:

While Kramer has little recourse in retrieving the stolen NFTs, his feel highlights the importance of sound operational security (opsec) as a cryptocurrency trader or NFT collector. He said that he has learned a lesson most opsec in handling valuable cryptocurrency when he tweeted yesterday:

"Lessons learned. Use a hard wallet... "

A hard wallet, otherwise known as a common cold wallet, is a crypto wallet that does not connect to the net until manually plugged into a computer and then each transaction needs to exist approved using physical buttons. Hard wallets are a superior measure over hot wallets to secure crypto assets.

Kramer's ordeal is not a unique feel to NFT traders, particularly those familiar with the Bored Ape Yacht Social club collection.

On Dec. 26, NFT collector bergpay.eth said he suffered a similar fate to Kramer when five Jungle Freaks and 2 Sandbox NFTs were stolen from his Ethereum wallet and his ENS domain was transferred to a new address.

On Nov. thirty, Twitter account friesframe summed up the frustration that tin overcome an NFT owner if they find that their favorite items take been stolen from their hot wallet.

OpenSea has not frozen either bergpay'south or friesframe's NFTs yet.