- The board dismissed the CEO over self-dealing rug pull allegations.
- Losses in speculative trading on an asset auction.
- Users who ended up with virtually useless ecosystem tokens.
Once a major player in the NFT landscape, Pixel Vault has now fired its CEO following some scorching accusations. The company has tweeted on X (previously Twitter) that @gfunkera86 (Sean Gearin) is no longer there. His recent actions are under a formal review. There have been claims of self-dealing and a rug pull, leading to the abrupt dismissal.
Source – X
The scandal is associated with the MetaHero universe and the linked tokens promoted by Pixel Vault: $GG, $PUNKS, and $POW.
The community members have claimed that the former CEO was behind the shady swaps- they have exchanged their $PUNKS with the $GG tokens at the market lows. Eventually, 87 percent of $PUNKS supply was taken over by the company. Many claim $GG became nearly worthless.
Outrageous Auction: Where Did the Money Go?
Source – X
The huge explosion happened just as sixteen CryptoPunks, assets connected to the community, were up for sale. The auction generated 930 ETH, or approximately 2.4 million dollars. Devotees of the project held the belief that Ethereum (ETH) would fuel the economy of Pixel Vault. It would provide incentives for both developers and gamers.
Source – X
Rather, several X voices indicated that the money found its way into the pockets of the now-former CEO and was supposedly burned up in risky derivative trading.
One of the posts read: Gfunk pocketed the ETH in the sale, deposited it on ByBit, and leveraged the money and lost it all. People wanted answers on how money raised, more than 100 million, including VC money, could just disappear with little to show.
Analysts citing recent activity pointed out that the operations shut down within weeks. Community accounts reported that actors drained major wallets, sold the remaining NFTs at auction, and halted messages from the CEO.
A tool known as PunkPredictor estimated the sold Punks at 950 ETH, which made the price of sale a major point of criticism among the NFT community.
Private Loans, Collateral Moves, and The $GG Narrative
Just before the auction, someone set up a private loan using PUNKS tokens as collateral, allowing Gfunk to borrow ETH and possibly inflate the auction prices. This news further entangled the web.
The change sparked a new wave of cries of manipulation and mistrust, which numerous X accounts and community threads have since confirmed.
In the fallout, the deposed CEO attempted to position $GG as the higher upside vision of the project. He stated that the market dynamics and some errors he made resulted in the tanking of the $GG token prices, with $PUNKS losing all of the planned utility.
He emphasized that the GG ecosystem would be funded further by the proceeds, and faith was lost when more community leaders described the moves as one of the most apparent rug pulls in crypto history.
