OpenClaw Founder Faces Harassment in the Crypto Community - ForkLog: Cryptocurrencies, AI, Singularity, Future

# Founder of OpenClaw faces harassment in the crypto community

AI startup OpenAI has invited OpenClaw founder Peter Steinberger to lead the personal AI agents division. Meanwhile, the entrepreneur was accused of refusing to launch the project’s token.

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. We expect this will quickly become core to our…

— Sam Altman (@sama) February 15, 2026

“He is a genius with many amazing ideas about a future where smart agents interact with each other and perform truly useful tasks for people. We expect this to quickly become a key part of our product offerings,” — said OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

The CEO added that OpenClaw will operate as an open-source project supported by his company.

“I want to change the world, not build a big corporation, and collaborating with OpenAI is the fastest way to get that message out to everyone,” — Steinberger stated in a blog post.

OpenClaw (formerly Clawdbot) is an open-source service that became popular in late January. It allows users to create AI agents that run locally on their devices.

Problems with the crypto community

In an interview with Lex Friedman, Steinberger shared how he was attacked within the crypto community. At one point, the developer was considering deleting the project.

“I didn’t realize they are not only good at harassment but also very skilled at scripting and using tools. I underestimated these people. Honestly, I was close to just deleting this [Clawdbot],” he said.

Steinberger is not interested in issuing or promoting a token, but users actively pushed for it. People created a digital asset and began demanding that the developer recognize it, collect commissions, and develop the project. They spammed in Discord and X.

Eventually, he was accused of not pumping the token. Meanwhile, crypto scammers tried to hack the developer’s Github, and during the project rebranding, all usernames were quickly hijacked to promote new digital assets.

“This is the worst form of online harassment I’ve encountered,” — Steinberger emphasized.

Recall that in January, experts warned about the dangers of using the AI assistant Clawdbot. It could unintentionally reveal personal data and API keys.