The word “Bitcoin” or any other mention of cryptocurrency will get you banned from the OpenClaw Discord. Not to spam, not to shill, just to say it.
OpenClaw is an open source AI agent framework. Since its release in late January, the number of stars on GitHub has exceeded 200,000. Peter Steinberger, the Austrian developer behind OpenClaw, has implemented comprehensive encryption-free rules on the project’s community server.
Recently, a user mentioned Bitcoin in passing — in the context of using block heights as a multi-agent base clock, rather than promoting the coin — and was immediately blocked.
blocked @openclaw Disharmony caused by saying “Bitcoin” 🦞
CLAHD27 is a multi-agent benchmark where the Bitcoin block height is just one clock (mod 27). There are no tokens.
Hypothetical: Can we weigh intentions up front? If attention is measured, we bring trust to OpenClaw agents.@steppet Unlock 🙏
—clashd27 (@blockapunk) February 21, 2026
Steinberg made this prohibition clear in a follow-up reply to X’s post.
We have strict server rules, which you accept when entering the server. There was no mention of any cryptocurrency, he said.
The rules come after what happened in late January, when the cryptocurrency nearly destroyed the project from within.
The trouble started when AI giant Anthropic sent Steinberger a trademark notice regarding the project’s original name, Clawdbot, which the AI company felt was too close to Anthropic’s own “Claude.” Steinberg agreed to rebrand.
But in the mere seconds between releasing his old GitHub and
The token’s market capitalization reached $16 million within hours. When Steinberger publicly denied any involvement, the stock price plummeted more than 90% and late buyers were wiped out. Early snipers walked away with profits, and Steinberg was harassed by traders who accused him of not endorsing the coin.
“To all crypto enthusiasts: please stop pinging me and harassing me,” he wrote on X at the time. “I will never do coins. Any project that lists me as the owner of a coin is a scam.”
“You are actively sabotaging this project.”
To all cryptocurrency enthusiasts:
Please stop pinging me and stopping harassing me.
I would never make a coin.
Any project that lists me as a token owner is a scam.
No, I will not accept the fee.
You are actively sabotaging the project.— Peter Steinberg 🦞 (@steipete) January 27, 2026
Security researchers and independent auditors from blockchain company SlowMist have discovered that hundreds of OpenClaw instances were exposed on the public internet without authentication, in part because the tool’s localhost trust model was broken when running behind a reverse proxy.
Separately, a researcher discovered 386 malicious “skills” (additional scripts for OpenClaw agents) posted on the project’s skills repository, many of which specifically targeted cryptocurrency traders.
Steinberger has since joined OpenAI to lead its personal representation division, while OpenClaw transitioned to an independent open source foundation. The project is booming.
But the crypto ban on Discord remains, leaving scars in the weeks-long incident that showed how quickly speculative token culture can engulf legitimate software projects and nearly bury them.
