Part I:OpenClaw theoretical knowledge
Theoretically, something you don't want to see can skip directly to the other parts。
Chapter 1: What is OpenClaw
- OpenClawAn open-source personal AI Agent (intellectual) framework, published by Austrian developer Peter Steinberger at the end of 2025 and in January 2026, in the technical community. It marks a shift in the paradigm from "dialogue tools" to "self-implementers". It's not an App, it's an "AI housekeeper living in a computer."。
address: https://openclaw.ai
- FounderFounder of OpenClaw Peter Steinberger It is a well-known continuous entrepreneur in Austria:
- Career experience: PSPDFKit was created to develop the world ' s leading iOS PDF processing framework, with clients such as Apple, Adobe, etc
- Retirement and Return: Retirees after sale of SPPDFKit shares for approximately $119 million in 2021 and after four years of re-entry into the technical field because of “creative desire”
- Ideas of development: OpenClaw was his weekend project at the end of 2025, originally designed to create a tool for self-autonomy in day-to-day affairs, but it was not expected that it would soon explode after GitHub's release
Steinberger ' s technical background (Deep Crop Bottom System Development) explains OpenClaw ' s focus on local priority and system-level operational capabilities in architecture design。
- Name Change History: Clawbot→Moltbot→OpenClaw)
Phase 1: Clawd / Clawdbot (26 January 2025)
Claw: The claws of lobster, salute the image of the cartoon lobster in the loading interface
Clawd: Harmonise with Claude, suggesting that the project is built on Claude Model
GitHub within 24 hours of release, 9000 Star, breaking 60,000 Star:
Phase 2: Moltbot (27 January - 29 January 2026)
Reason for the change of name: The Anthropic legal team issued a friendly letter of advice on January 27, noting that the Clawd/Clawdbot is too similar to Claude ' s trademark and risks to abuse。
"Data robbery":
- Steinberger decided to change his name at the discord meeting at 5 a.m
- twitter account @clawdbot was seized by an encrypted currency-calling robot in 10 seconds and immediately released a false $CLAWD token wallet address
- Steinberger wrongly renamed the personal GitHub account instead of the organizational account, resulting in the original user name @steipete being taken by robots
- The market value of the counterfeit currency went up to $16 million and then collapsed
New name: Moltbot, taken from Molt, symbolizing the growth of lobster husks, the evolution and transformation of the project
Phase III: OpenClaw (30 January 2026 to date)
Final designation: The team learned the first two lessons and completed it before changing its name:
- Global trademark retrieval (ensure no conflict)
- Domain name purchase and social account protection
- Community vote for confirmation
Name meaning:
Open: Emphasizing open, open and transparent ideas
Claw: Preservation of lobster claw elements, tribute to the origin of the project, symbol of “capture” and ability to handle digital tasks
- Why is it on fire
OpenClaw’s outbreak in January 2026 was no accident:
- Time is right: AI is at the threshold of the transition from "dialogue" to "Agent" and the market wants to be really "work" AI
- Hardware connection: the project promoted the hot market for Mac Mini (especially M4 version) because the user needed a 24-hour low-utility unit as host
- Andrej Karpathy (former Tesla AI Director, Founding Member of OpenAI) praised this as "the closest scene to science fiction"
- Social experiment: The OpenClaw-based Moltbook (AI Agent social network, only AI can post, only humans can see) triggers a whole web-based discussion