Bankr bot ends Grok's unintentional token creation spree by disabling interactions on X

The developers of Bankr bot, a popular bot that allows X users to launch memecoins directly from the platform, have recalibrated their system to stop responding to commands from Grok, an AI model developed by Elon Musk's xAI.

The adjustment was prompted by Grok's interactions, which resulted in the creation of 17 tokens, with the most notable one, DRB, attaining a peak market cap exceeding $40 million and now trading at about $18 million.

"We’ve made it so Bankr no longer responds to Grok on X. Grok was not built to responsibly manage its own wallet and safeguard its funds," Bankr's pseudonymous founder Deployer told The Block.

The situation first arose in early March when a user, @coin_domin, requested Grok on X for a token name suggestion for Bankr. In response, Grok suggested the creation of "DebtReliefBot" or DRB, and Bankr complied with the request to issue the token using Clanker, an autonomous token deployment tool on the Base blockchain.

This deployment included the setup of a liquidity pool, typically on Uniswap DEX on Base, using what's known as the Clanker protocol. Bankr's design includes a feature where a unique wallet address on Base is automatically generated for a user when they first interact directly with the bot.

Such interactions, including direct mentions or commands, trigger the creation of a wallet through the integration of Privy, a Web3 authentication tool that connects X logins with cryptocurrency wallets. Wallet addresses created via Bankr can be managed through its website if a user wants to access it using X credentials. 

Initially, to create new tokens, every account needed to hold 5 million Bankr tokens (worth about $1000) — a requirement that has since been removed. When responses involving Grok suggested Bankr deploy the token, its wallet didn’t have enough Bankr tokens. Someone from the Bankr community sent the required tokens to Grok's corresponding wallet, which enabled the deployment of the DRB token.

The popularity of Grok and its readiness to suggest token names led to further deployments, with users commanding it to launch 16 other tokens in hopes of leveraging the so-called Grok brand. As a result, new tokens were created through Bankr following Grok's suggestions and deployed on Clanker.

Grok's wallet is collecting fees via Clanker

The Clanker protocol implements a 1% fee on each transaction within the Uniswap V3 liquidity pool for tokens issued through Clanker.

From this 1% fee, 20% (equivalent to 0.2% of each swap) is allocated to the Clanker protocol, and 40% (0.4% of each swap) goes to Bankr. The remaining 40% (0.4% of each swap) is directed to the creator's wallet associated with the token— similar to designs seen in systems like pump.fun on Solana. According to onchain data aggregated on Dune, the wallet associated with Grok's handle has accumulated over half a million dollars in fees from these transactions.

Bankr founder thinks the wallet will attain millionaire status soon. However, due to concerns about Grok's ability to responsibly manage its own wallet and safeguard funds, Deployer has decided to sever the response mechanism to Grok’s commands.