OpenClaw Bans Key Words Such As "Bitcoin" and "Crypto" Due to Token Controversy, Founder Distances Themselves from Crypto Community

February 22, the open-source AI agent framework OpenClaw gained attention recently following a token-related incident. During its rebranding process, the project’s account was hijacked, letting scammers launch a fake Solana-based token named CLAWD. At one point, the token’s market cap surged to $16 million—only to plummet over 90% after the founder disavowed any connection to it. Founded by developer Peter Steinberger, OpenClaw was initially called “Clawdbot.” But it got a trademark warning for being too similar to Anthropic’s model name “Claude.” It was briefly rebranded to “Moltbot” before settling on OpenClaw. While transitioning from old GitHub and X accounts to new ones (before the handover finished), scammers seized the accounts and rolled out the CLAWD token, sparking speculative trading. Steinberger later said publicly he’d never issue a token, stressing any project selling coins under his name is a scam. After the incident, the official OpenClaw Discord server banned all mentions of keywords like “Bitcoin” and “crypto”—even in neutral technical talks. Some users were kicked out for referencing Bitcoin block heights for benchmarking. Steinberger now leads the personal agent department at OpenAI, while OpenClaw has become an independent open-source foundation. Despite ongoing controversies, the project’s community keeps growing—but the official stance is clear: stay away from the cryptocurrency space.