An open-source AI assistant originally called Clawdbot has rapidly gained popularity before undergoing two quick rebrands to OpenClaw due to trademark concerns and online disruptions. Created by developer Peter Steinberger, the tool integrates into messaging apps to automate tasks and remember conversations. Despite security issues and scams, it continues to attract enthusiasts.
Peter Steinberger, an Austrian developer who previously sold his company PSPDFKit for around $119 million, launched Clawdbot about three weeks ago as an AI assistant that performs actions on users' computers through apps like WhatsApp, Telegram, and Slack. Unlike typical chatbots, it maintains persistent memory of past conversations, sends proactive reminders, and automates tasks such as scheduling, file organization, and email searches. The project quickly went viral, amassing 9,000 GitHub stars in its first 24 hours and surpassing 60,000 by late last week, earning praise from figures like AI researcher Andrej Karpathy and investor David Sacks.
The excitement turned chaotic when Anthropic, maker of the Claude AI, contacted Steinberger over name similarities. "As a trademark owner, we have an obligation to protect our marks -- so we reached out directly to the creator of Clawdbot about this," an Anthropic representative stated. On January 27 at 3:38 a.m. US Eastern Time, Steinberger rebranded it to Moltbot, but bots immediately seized social media handles like @clawdbot, posting crypto scams. Steinberger also accidentally renamed his personal GitHub account, requiring interventions from X and GitHub teams.
Further mishaps included a bizarre AI-generated icon dubbed the "Handsome Molty incident," where the lobster mascot acquired a human face, sparking memes. Fake profiles promoted scams, and a bogus $CLAWD cryptocurrency briefly reached a $16 million market cap before plummeting. By January 30, the project settled on OpenClaw to emphasize its open-source nature and lobster theme, as Steinberger simply disliked the prior name.
Security concerns emerged with reports of exposed API keys and chat logs in public deployments. Roy Akerman of Silverfort warned, "When an AI agent continues to operate using a human's credentials... it becomes a hybrid identity that most security controls aren't designed to recognize." Despite these risks, OpenClaw remains active, with ongoing development in Vienna, and installation guides available at openclaw.ai.
