At an offline event, a former colleague encountered the Clanker developer who was exposed for "stealing Velodrome funds" and left the team.

Warned the public to stay away from scammers, yet stole $350,000 from Velodrome.

Written by: Weilin, PANews

Recently, the AI Agent launch platform Clanker, deployed on the Base network, has found itself in the midst of a public relations crisis. 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 on 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 far-reaching negative effects, which also impacted his work at Clanker.

As of 10 AM 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 division within Clanker due to a conflict with Zora, and the founder _proxystudio was ousted, although there are also claims that ClankerNews is _proxystudio's account.

Once warned the public to stay away from scammers, yet stole 350,000 USD 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 mastermind behind ClankerNews. He is a figure who has received widespread attention in the crypto industry, being the founder of Information Token and was invited by Vice News to appear in a documentary about crypto scams, warning the public to stay away from scammers. 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 when the Velodrome project was launched, it coincided with the Luna crash and the turmoil in the crypto market, leaving the team with only $350,000 in their account. "One day, a month after the launch, we woke up to find it (the funds) missing."

Initially, the outside world generally believed that the project team "rug pulled" (i.e., ran away with the funds). Since Alex was the only one in 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 joked, "I dreamed our funds were drained," and tested privacy tools like Tornado Cash. He knew 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 the Velodrome team confronted Gabagool on the spot and demanded the return of the funds, Gabagool actually stated that he wanted to 'keep 10% as a reward,'" Alex wrote.

On August 13, 2022, Velodrome issued a statement regarding the theft incident, stating: "The attacker managed to transfer $350,000 from this (team-owned wallet)... It is extremely disappointing for us 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 a documentary on Vice

According to Alex, Proxystudio issued an "apology" at that time and then disappeared. However, he and the team 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 do not have the money to deal with this issue, nor the means to salvage the damaged agreement 3) His sister pleaded with us not to do so, saying that he might have suicidal tendencies.

The reversal of events took place at a joint event called FarCon between Farcaster and Clanker on April 30 of this year. According to Alex Cutler, he unexpectedly recognized Gabagool at the elevator entrance during 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 said to 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 Responds Quickly: The Importance of Background Checks Raised by Community Users

The Clanker team quickly responded upon learning that Gabagool was involved in a theft incident. On May 5th, founder Jack Dishman stated, "Clanker has recently become aware of proxystudio's relevant conduct during its past work period. Following the exposure of this information, proxystudio has decided to resign from Clanker immediately."

Jack Dishman stated, "We want to assure our community, partners, and stakeholders that the operations and assets of Clanker 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 urgent transition plan to ensure the continuity of all operations. We will continue to be committed to maintaining transparency and integrity, and to providing the community with an excellent token experience. Thank you for your continued support and trust during this time."

Alex Cutler also stated that it has been proven that _proxystudio is our disgraced former teammate gabagool.eth. I can personally assure you that Jack Dishman had no knowledge of this situation and handled it perfectly. The Clanker team has the full support of both myself and the Aerodrome team.

There is currently no evidence of any malicious behavior by Gabagool during his tenure at Clanker (the project was launched in November 2024). Clanker's token, CLANKER, hit an all-time high of $128 shortly after its launch, valuing it at $128 million. But then the token fell along with the entire AI proxy track, and the current price is $25.8. Since its launch, Clanker has recorded $27 million in fee income, with an average daily income of about $38,000 so far in May.

Regarding the cause of this incident, Quick Intel's founder @ninja_dev3 stated, "Why have we not reached a stage where people do not conduct thorough reviews of individuals? This applies to both project and ecosystem perspectives. We have encountered this situation multiple times in other projects. What concerns me the most is why there is no review." In response, Alex stated that he agrees this is a significant issue, but it is also very tricky. "Background checks won't uncover this, there is no connection between the individuals, I bet the money in his wallet has been cleaned, etc. I have some ideas, but it's not easy."

Currently, this incident serves as a warning for the crypto industry. The partial lack of a team member review system may lead to some projects suffering losses. Gabagool was once one of the respected voices in the industry, and for this reason, the impact is widespread. This time, the Clanker team responded decisively, but _proxystudio has yet to respond, which adds some uncertainty to the incident. PANews will closely monitor the subsequent developments.