No Crypto Talk in the OpenClaw Discord

Peter Steinberger, who created the AI agent tool OpenClaw, decided to ban any mention of Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies from his community chat. The rule was announced after a user reported being blocked from the Discord server for discussing crypto topics. Steinberger reminded members that they had agreed to strict rules when joining, and one of those rules is “no crypto mention at all. ” Some people said even neutral references to Bitcoin triggered moderation. The ban came after Steinberger warned that scammers were trying to profit from the project’s popularity and that he had faced harassment linked to cryptocurrency discussions. He told followers on social media in January, “Please stop pinging me and harassing me. I will never do a coin. Any project that lists me as coin owner is a scam. ” These messages reflected his frustration with the influx of spam and unwanted attention.OpenClaw started as an open‑source framework for building AI agents that can perform tasks automatically. As the tool gained popularity, Steinberger said he received a wave of spam from crypto enthusiasts who wanted to connect the project with digital money. In an interview, he explained that spam was so frequent that it drowned out normal conversation about the software. Despite some community members urging him to relax the rule, Steinberger maintained that his focus is on the project’s technical goals, not finance. He recently joined OpenAI and announced that OpenClaw would shift to a foundation model, hoping the partnership would accelerate its reach. Some users questioned whether Steinberger’s strict crypto policy aligns with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who co‑founded the Worldcoin identity platform that issues a crypto token to users. There is no public link between the Discord rule and Altman’s ventures, but Steinberger’s stance has sparked debate about whether AI tools should engage with cryptocurrency use cases.