Peter Steinberger, the Austrian developer behind the open-source AI agent framework OpenClaw, has implemented a strict ban on any mention of cryptocurrency within the project’s community Discord server. This decision follows a series of events that nearly derailed the project, including a hijacking incident involving scammers who promoted a fraudulent token.
Since its launch in late January, OpenClaw has gained significant traction, amassing over 200,000 stars on GitHub. However, the project’s reputation was put at risk when Steinberger was forced to rebrand after receiving a trademark notice from Anthropic, which claimed that the original name, Clawdbot, was too similar to its own AI product, Claude.
During the brief period between the release of his old handles and the acquisition of new ones, scammers took control of Steinberger’s accounts. They proceeded to promote a fake token named $CLAWD on the Solana blockchain, which quickly reached a market capitalization of $16 million. Following Steinberger’s public denial of any affiliation with the token, its value plummeted by over 90%, resulting in significant financial losses for late investors.
“To all crypto folks: please stop pinging me, stop harassing me. I will never do a coin. Any project that lists me as coin owner is a SCAM,” Steinberger stated on X, addressing the harassment he received from disgruntled traders.
In addition to the token incident, security researchers from blockchain firm SlowMist discovered vulnerabilities within OpenClaw. They found numerous instances of the tool exposed to the public internet without proper authentication, primarily due to flaws in its localhost trust model when utilized behind a reverse proxy. Furthermore, an investigation revealed 386 malicious scripts targeting crypto traders that had been uploaded to OpenClaw’s skill repository.
Despite these challenges, Steinberger has moved on to a leadership role at OpenAI, overseeing its personal agents division, while OpenClaw has transitioned to an independent open-source foundation. The project continues to flourish, but the no-crypto policy remains in effect on Discord, a precautionary measure stemming from the tumultuous events that highlighted the risks posed by speculative cryptocurrency culture.
Peter Steinberger has banned cryptocurrency discussions on OpenClaw's Discord after scammers exploited his accounts to promote a fraudulent token. This incident raised concerns about security vulnerabilities within the project but has not hindered its overall success.