Clanker Employee Outed as Velodrome Thief

Clanker, an AI agent launchpad on Coinbase’s Ethereum Layer 2, Base, has announced the departure of developer Proxystudio, who has been identified as a previous member of the Velodrome Finance team responsible for a $350,000 theft.

During his time at Velodrome, Proxystudio, better known under his previous pseudonym of Gabagool.eth, stole roughly $350,000 of team funds from the project.

On August 13, 2022, Velodrome released information following the theft, stating, “An attacker managed to drain $350k from this [team-owned] wallet…Much to our disappointment, we learned the attacker was a fellow team member, Gabagool.”

Velodrome confirmed that Gabagool returned the funds, but proceeded to sever ties with the developer. The theft was a massive surprise to many familiar with his work, considering Gabagool was once interviewed by Vice TV with his face exposed to warn the public about crypto scams, only to spearhead one just months later.

Velodrome core team member and co-founder of Aerodrome Finance, Alex Cutler, recognized Gabagool at a Farcaster and Clanker event on April 30, where he confronted him and threatened to publicly disclose his identity if Gabagool himself didn’t do so.

Last night, Clanker founder and CEO Jack Dishman took to X to address the matter, saying, “ Clanker has recently become aware of information concerning proxystudio's conduct during his previous employment. Following these revelations, proxystudio has decided to part ways with Clanker, effective immediately.”

There is no evidence of malicious activity by Gabagool during his time at Clanker, which launched in November 2024. The CLANKER token reached an all-time high of $128, or a $128 million valuation, shortly after launch. The token has fallen along the rest of the AI agent space, and currently changes hands at $25.8.