The phrase “bitcoin” or another point out of crypto will get you banned from the OpenClaw Discord. Not for spam, not for shilling, however only for saying it.
Peter Steinberger, the Austrian developer behind OpenClaw, the open-source AI agent framework that has surged previous 200,000 GitHub stars since its launch in late January, has enforced a blanket no-crypto rule on the challenge’s group server.
A person who not too long ago talked about bitcoin in passing — within the context of utilizing block peak as a clock for a multi-agent benchmark, not selling a token — was blocked instantly.
Bought blocked from @openclaw Discord for saying ‘bitcoin’ 🦞
CLASHD27 is multi-agent benchmark the place Bitcoin block peak is only a clock (mod 27). No tokens.
Speculation: can we pre-weigh intent? If consideration is measured we carry belief to OpenClaw brokers.@steipete Unblock 🙏
— clashd27 (@blockapunk) February 21, 2026
Steinberger was clear in regards to the ban in a follow-up reply to the X submit.
We’ve strict server guidelines that you just accepted whe you entered the server. No crypto point out in any respect is considered one of them, he stated.
The rule comes after what occurred in late January, when crypto almost destroyed the challenge from the within.
The difficulty began after AI powerhouse Anthropic despatched Steinberger a trademark discover over the challenge’s authentic title, Clawdbot, which the AI firm argued was too near Anthropic’s personal “Claude.” Steinberger agreed to rebrand.
However within the temporary seconds between releasing his outdated GitHub and X handles and securing the brand new ones, scammers seized each accounts and started selling a faux token known as $CLAWD on Solana.
That token hit $16 million in market capitalization inside hours. When Steinberger publicly denied any involvement, it crashed over 90%, wiping out late consumers. Early snipers walked away with earnings, and Steinberger was left fielding harassment from merchants who blamed him for not endorsing the token.
“To all crypto people: please cease pinging me, cease harassing me,” he wrote on X on the time. “I’ll by no means do a coin. Any challenge that lists me as coin proprietor is a SCAM.”
“You might be actively damaging the challenge.”
To all crypto people:
Please cease pinging me, cease harassing me.
I’ll by no means do a coin.
Any challenge that lists me as coin proprietor is a SCAM.
No, I can’t settle for charges.
You might be actively damanging the challenge.— Peter Steinberger 🦞 (@steipete) January 27, 2026
Safety researchers at blockchain agency SlowMist and impartial auditors discovered tons of of OpenClaw situations uncovered to the general public web with no authentication, partly as a result of the software’s localhost belief mannequin breaks when run behind a reverse proxy.
Individually, a researcher discovered 386 malicious “expertise” — add-on scripts for OpenClaw brokers — revealed on the challenge’s ability repository, many concentrating on crypto merchants particularly.
Steinberger has since joined OpenAI to guide its private brokers division, with OpenClaw transferring to an impartial open-source basis. The challenge is prospering.
However the crypto ban on Discord stays, leaving a scar from a weeks-long episode that confirmed how briskly speculative token tradition can engulf a professional software program challenge and almost bury it.
