$Clanker developer exposed for prior coin theft, team urgently distances itself, Gen Z trust crisis rings alarm bells again

The AI Agent project $Clanker, deployed on the Base network, recently faced a trust scandal. On May 5, founder Jack Dishman announced that the team's core developer _proxystudio (revealed to be former crypto influencer Gabagool.eth) decided to resign due to past issues.

Gabagool previously stole $350,000 of team funds while working at Velodrome Finance. Although the amount was repaid, the incident caused a huge uproar after being re-exposed.

Gabagool was once invited by mainstream media Vice to warn the public to "stay away from crypto scams." Ironically, he was the main figure in the 2022 Velodrome internal theft incident.

The exposure originated when Velodrome co-founder Alex "accidentally met" an old teammate at a $Clanker event, confirmed his identity, and publicly posted about it, triggering a chain reaction in the community. At the time of the incident, Gabagool even tried to "keep 10% as compensation," which once pushed the project to the brink of bankruptcy.

Facing the crisis, the $Clanker team quickly distanced itself, stating the incident occurred before _proxystudio joined and emphasizing that platform operations and assets were unaffected. They pledged to enhance transparency and governance mechanisms going forward. The incident also received public support from Velodrome co-founder Alex and the Aerodrome team, who said Jack and $Clanker were completely unaware and handled the situation properly.

Currently, there is no evidence showing Gabagool engaged in misconduct during his tenure at Clanker. Launched at the end of 2024, $Clanker once peaked at $128 with a valuation exceeding $128 million. Its price has since fallen to $25.8, but the project has accumulated over $27 million in fee revenue, with daily revenue near $38,000 in May.

This incident has sparked widespread discussion in the crypto industry about implementing "project member background checks." Quick Intel founder bluntly stated, "Why haven’t we established a thorough vetting system yet?" Alex responded, "Crypto identities are inherently anonymous, making traditional checks ineffective."

Gabagool has yet to publicly respond, and the incident continues to develop.