I would say the entire community is over-reacted when the devs revealed their identities.
Pursuing a PhD degree doesn't mean anything. Would the community follows me if i intend to launch a coin with my friends? (i am actually a PhD student in top 20 uni and have few years exp in computational biology too!)
i think it does.. it provides an insight to the devs' characters.. most academics are not scammers.. and most scammers are not academics, just my thought