Met a former colleague at an offline event, Clanker developer exposed for "stealing Velodrome funds" and leaving the team.

Author: Weilin, PANews

Recently, the AI Agent launch platform Clanker, deployed on the Base network, has fallen into a public relations storm. In the early hours of May 5, Clanker's founder and CEO Jack Dishman announced on the X platform that the project developer _proxystudio had decided to resign immediately. The reason for the resignation is that he was revealed to have a surprising "criminal record"—during his time working at the well-known DeFi project Velodrome Finance, he stole approximately $350,000 from the team's wallet.

Although _proxystudio later returned the funds, the incident still had a relatively far-reaching negative impact, affecting his work at Clanker.

As of 10 a.m. on May 7, the last tweet from _proxystudio stopped at retweeting a tweet from May 2, and the developer has not responded to this matter. However, some users pointed out that, according to ClankerNews, there was a disagreement within Clanker due to conflicts with Zora, resulting in the founder _proxystudio being ousted. There are also claims that ClankerNews is _proxystudio's account.

once warned the public to stay away from scammers but stole $350,000 in funds from Velodrome.

According to Alex Cutler, a core member of Velodrome and co-founder of Aerodrome Finance, who recently exposed on the X platform, the previous identity of _proxystudio was actually Gabagool.eth. Some crypto users also pointed out that he is the person behind ClankerNews. He is a figure who has received considerable attention in the crypto industry, not only as the founder of Information Token but also having been invited by Vice News to appear in a documentary about crypto scams, warning the public to stay away from fraudsters. Ironically, just a few months after his appearance, he orchestrated an internal theft case in a DeFi project.

The $350,000 theft incident nearly brought the Velodrome team to the brink of collapse. Alex recalled that the Velodrome project was launched during the Luna crash, amidst turmoil in the crypto market, and the team had only $350,000 left in the account. "One day, a month after the launch, we woke up to find that it (the funds) was gone."

Initially, the outside world widely believed that the project team had "rug-pulled" (i.e., absconded with the funds). Since Alex was the only person on the team with a public identity, he was once pushed to the forefront of public opinion. Alex wrote, "I am still very unfamiliar with this field, yet he made me take responsibility."

He revealed that before the incident, Gabagool had joked, "I dreamed that our funds were drained," and also tested privacy tools like Tornado Cash. He knew that Alex was stranded in Europe due to the COVID-19 pandemic and was in poor health, taking action when the team was at its weakest.

"What’s even more infuriating is that when confronted on the spot by the Velodrome team and asked to return the funds, Gabagool actually stated he would 'keep 10% as a reward,'" Alex wrote.

On August 13, 2022, Velodrome released a statement after the theft incident stating: "The attacker managed to transfer $350,000 from this (team-owned wallet)... We are extremely disappointed to find that the attacker was actually our team member Gabagool."

Later, Velodrome confirmed that Gabagool had returned the funds, but ultimately decided to sever ties with the developer. However, the impact of this incident is far from over.

Proxystudio warns the public to stay away from fraud in Vice's documentary According to Alex, Proxystudio issued an "apology" at that time and then disappeared. However, he and the team at the time chose not to take legal action for the following reasons: 1) The amount may not be sufficient for law enforcement to take action 2) We did not have the money to deal with this issue, nor a way to salvage the damaged agreement 3) His sister pleaded with us not to do so, saying he might have suicidal tendencies.

The reversal of events occurred on April 30th of this year during a joint Farcaster and Clanker event called FarCon. According to Alex Cutler, he unexpectedly recognized Gabagool at the elevator entrance while attending a Clanker event in SoHo, New York.

"I saw him—the guy who almost ruined my life," Alex wrote in a follow-up post. He stated that after confirming the identity, he confronted Gabagool on the spot and told him, "You have to reveal your identity within 24 hours, or I will make it public."

Faced with Alex's questioning, Gabagool initially tried to deny his identity, but eventually gave up the disguise and attempted to "communicate" privately. Alex chose to leave but decided not to remain silent any longer.

Clanker quickly responded, emphasizing the importance of background checks as raised by community users.

The Clanker team responded quickly upon learning that Gabagool was involved in a theft incident. On May 5, founder Jack Dishman stated: "Clanker recently became aware of proxystudio's relevant behavior during its past work. After this information was exposed, proxystudio has decided to leave Clanker immediately."

Jack Dishman stated, "We want to assure our community, partners, and stakeholders that Clanker's operations and assets will not be affected by this incident. This matter is only related to activities that occurred before he joined our organization." He continued, "Our team is implementing an emergency transition plan to ensure the continuity of all operations. We will continue to be committed to maintaining transparency and integrity, and providing an excellent token experience for the community. Thank you for your continued support and trust during this time."

Alex Cutler also stated that it turns out _proxystudio is our discredited former teammate gabagool.eth. I can personally assure that Jack Dishman had no knowledge of this situation and handled it perfectly. The Clanker team has my full support as well as that of the Aerodrome team.

Currently, there is no evidence that Gabagool engaged in any malicious behavior during his tenure at Clanker (the project launched in November 2024). The token CLANKER reached an all-time high of $128 shortly after its launch, with a valuation of $128 million. However, the token subsequently fell along with the entire AI agent sector, and its current price is $25.8. Since its launch, Clanker has generated $27 million in transaction fee revenue, and as of now, the average daily revenue for May is approximately $38,000.

As for the cause of this incident, @ninja_dev3, the founder of Quick Intel, said, "How come we haven't reached the stage where people don't fully review individuals?" This is true from both a project perspective and an ecosystem perspective. We've had this happen many times in other projects. My main concern is why there is no review. Alex said he agrees it's a big issue, but it's also tricky. Background checks won't reveal this, there's no connection between the characters, I'm willing to bet the money in his wallet is laundered, etc. I have some ideas, but it's not easy. ”

At present, this incident serves as a warning for the cryptocurrency industry, as the partial lack of a team member review system may cause some projects to suffer losses. Gabagool was once one of the respected voices in the industry, and because of this, the impact is widespread. This time, the Clanker team responded decisively, but _proxystudio has yet to respond, which raises some questions about the incident. PANews will closely monitor the subsequent developments.