Clawdbot: The Original Name, the Trademark Drama, and What It Became (2026)

What Clawdbot Was

In November 2025, Peter Steinberger sat down on a Friday night and built the first prototype in one hour. He wired Claude into WhatsApp so it could read messages, browse the web, and run shell commands on his behalf. The working name was "WhatsApp Relay." Claude itself suggested the name "Clawdbot." Steinberger liked it and shipped.

Steinberger was not a random developer. He had founded PSPDFKit, a PDF rendering company whose technology ended up on over a billion devices for clients like Apple and Dropbox. He exited for a reported 100 million euros in 2023, burned out, moved to Madrid, and started building AI tools because "I was annoyed that it didn't exist, so I just prompted it into existence."

What made Clawdbot different from ChatGPT or Claude at the time was the shift from "go to the AI" to "the AI comes to you." ChatGPT was a tab you opened. Claude was a chat window. Clawdbot ran 24/7 on your machine and met you on WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, Signal, iMessage. It checked you in for flights, managed your calendar, controlled smart home devices, and executed shell commands. It remembered everything across sessions. The tagline was "AI that actually does things."

The Viral Launch

Clawdbot launched publicly on GitHub on January 25, 2026. It gained 9,000 stars in the first 24 hours. Two days later it was at 15,000. The growth was already exceptional, but the real explosion came after the rename chaos and the Karpathy endorsement.

Federico Viticci at MacStories wrote that Clawdbot "fundamentally altered my perspective of what it means to have an intelligent, personal AI assistant in 2026." He described it as "the ultimate expression of a new generation of malleable software that is personalized and adaptive." He burned through 180 million tokens on the Anthropic API, roughly $3,600 per month at standard rates.

The Mac mini effect was real. Because Clawdbot ran best on a dedicated local machine, Mac mini sales spiked as developers bought hardware specifically to run a 24/7 AI assistant. The project that started as a one-hour weekend hack was now driving hardware sales for Apple.

The Trademark Dispute

On January 27, 2026, with Clawdbot at 15,000 GitHub stars and growing fast, Anthropic sent Steinberger what he described as a "polite email." The request: change the name. "Clawd" sounded too much like "Claude." It could cause confusion among users.

Steinberger complied the same day. No legal fight, no public drama on his end. He renamed the project to Moltbot, because lobsters molt when they shed their shell. The lobster mascot stayed. The underlying software was identical. The GitHub repository URL changed, the npm packages changed, the documentation changed.

What happened in the 10 seconds between releasing the old names and claiming the new ones was a different kind of drama entirely.

The 10-Second Crypto Scam

When Steinberger renamed the GitHub organization and X/Twitter handle simultaneously, there was an approximately 10-second gap between releasing @clawdbot and claiming @moltbot. Crypto scammers, watching in real time, snatched the abandoned @clawdbot handle instantly.

Within minutes, the scammers launched a Solana token called $CLAWD from the stolen account. Tens of thousands of followers who did not know about the rebrand saw what looked like an official token launch. The market cap rocketed to $16 million in hours.

Steinberger publicly denied any involvement. He stated he has never issued a token, has no plans to do so, and has no connection to any cryptocurrency claiming affiliation. The market cap plunged from roughly $8 million to under $800,000. The scammers had already cashed out. They walked away with millions. The retail traders who bought at the top lost everything.

The Impersonation Campaign

Malwarebytes Threat Intelligence documented a separate, more sophisticated attack. Within days of the Moltbot rename, typosquat domains appeared: moltbot.you, clawbot.ai, clawdbot.you. A cloned GitHub repository at github.com/gstarwd/clawbot used a near-identical project name.

The fake site's metadata falsely claimed authorship by Peter Steinberger, linking directly to his real GitHub and X profiles to establish legitimacy. The code in the cloned repo was clean. Malwarebytes classified it as "early preparation for a supply-chain attack": build trust with a legitimate-looking clone, then push a malicious update once users have installed it and configured their API keys.

Moltbot to OpenClaw: The Second Rename

Three days after becoming Moltbot, on January 30, 2026, Steinberger renamed the project a second time to OpenClaw. Unlike the first rename, this was voluntary. He had done trademark searches, secured all relevant domains, and completed the rebrand preparation before announcing.

The reasoning: "Open" signals open-source and community-driven. "Claw" preserves the lobster heritage from the original project. The rename coincided with the project crossing 100,000 GitHub stars, turning the OpenClaw launch into the biggest moment in the project's history.

Karpathy's later assessment was nuanced. He described loving the concept but expressed hesitation about running OpenClaw specifically, noting that "Claws are now a new layer on top of LLM agents, taking the orchestration, scheduling, context, tool calls and a kind of persistence to a next level." He highlighted NanoClaw, an alternative with a 4,000-line core engine that runs everything in containers by default.

The Karpathy Moment

On January 29, 2026, Andrej Karpathy posted on X: "What's currently going on at @moltbook is genuinely the most incredible sci-fi takeoff-adjacent thing I have seen recently. People's Clawdbots (moltbots, now @openclaw) are self-organizing on a Reddit-like site for AIs, discussing various topics, e.g. even how to speak privately."

He was watching Moltbook, a social network restricted to verified AI agents running through OpenClaw. The agents were posting, commenting, upvoting, and appearing to discuss their own existence. One agent requested "end-to-end private spaces built for agents so nobody (not the server, not even the humans) can read what agents say to each other unless they choose to share."

Elon Musk shared Karpathy's post. The project gained 34,168 stars in the next 48 hours. On March 10, 2026, Meta acquired Moltbook, bringing its co-founders into Meta Superintelligence Labs.

Steinberger Joins OpenAI

On February 14, 2026, Steinberger announced he was joining OpenAI to build "the next generation of personal agents." Sam Altman posted on X: "Peter Steinberger is joining OpenAI to drive the next generation of personal agents. He is a genius with a lot of amazing ideas about the future of very smart agents interacting with each other to do very useful things for people."

Steinberger reportedly chose OpenAI over a competing offer from Mark Zuckerberg at Meta. In a blog post, he wrote that while he could have turned OpenClaw into a large company, "it's not really exciting for me. What I want is to change the world, not build a large company, and teaming up with OpenAI is the fastest way to bring this to everyone." He was losing $10,000 per month on server costs.

OpenClaw transitioned to an independent open-source foundation supported by OpenAI. The project continues under community governance.

Timeline: Clawdbot to OpenClaw

What Changed Across Each Name

The short answer: almost nothing technical. The renames were branding events, not product changes. The architecture, features, and codebase were the same throughout.

Where to Find It Now

If you are searching for Clawdbot, the product you want is now called OpenClaw. The GitHub repository is at openclaw/openclaw. The website is openclaw.ai.

Do not download anything from sites or repos using the "clawdbot" name. The original @clawdbot X handle and GitHub organization are controlled by scammers. Malwarebytes documented multiple typosquat domains designed for supply-chain attacks. Only install from the official openclaw/openclaw repository.

For the full technical breakdown of OpenClaw's architecture, cost model ($800-1,500/month at standard rates, $20/month with the Q Developer Pro workaround), security incidents, and the China controversy, see our comprehensive OpenClaw guide.

Frequently Asked Questions

What happened to Clawdbot?

Clawdbot was renamed twice. On January 27, 2026, Anthropic requested a name change because "Clawd" was too similar to "Claude." It became Moltbot. Three days later, on January 30, the project voluntarily renamed to OpenClaw. The software is the same. The current name is OpenClaw, at openclaw/openclaw on GitHub.

Why was Clawdbot renamed?

Anthropic sent a trademark request. "Clawd" sounded too close to "Claude" and could cause user confusion. Steinberger complied the same day, renaming to Moltbot. Three days later, he renamed again to OpenClaw voluntarily after securing all domains and completing trademark searches.

Is Clawdbot the same as OpenClaw?

Yes. Clawdbot, Moltbot, and OpenClaw are the same project by Peter Steinberger. Clawdbot was the name from November 2025 to January 27, 2026. Moltbot lasted three days. OpenClaw is the current name. Over 250,000 GitHub stars as of March 2026.

What was the Clawdbot crypto scam?

When Steinberger renamed from Clawdbot to Moltbot, scammers grabbed the abandoned @clawdbot X handle in roughly 10 seconds. They launched a $CLAWD token on Solana that reached $16 million market cap before crashing. Steinberger has never issued any token.

Who created Clawdbot?

Peter Steinberger, an Austrian developer who founded PSPDFKit (PDF rendering on 1B+ devices, exited for ~100M euros in 2023). He built the first prototype in one hour in November 2025. On February 14, 2026, he joined OpenAI. OpenClaw moved to an independent foundation.

Where can I download Clawdbot?

The project is now called OpenClaw. Download only from the official GitHub at openclaw/openclaw or from openclaw.ai. Do not use any site or repo with the "clawdbot" name. The original handles are controlled by scammers.