Open Source AI Assistant Clawdbot Renames to Moltbot: Trademark Conflict Sparks Crypto Scare

In the open-source community and AI field, the AI assistant project Clawdbot, built by renowned developer Peter Steinberger (founder of PSPDFKit), has been receiving much attention recently. However, just today, the project not only underwent a major rebranding but also unexpectedly got involved in a typical cryptocurrency scam.

Trademark Conflict: From Clawdbot to Moltbot

The story starts with a trademark issue. Although the name Clawdbot was loved by the community, due to its pronunciation being too similar to AI giant Anthropic’s flagship model Claude (Clawd vs. Claude), there was a potential risk of trademark infringement.

To avoid legal disputes and respect Anthropic’s intellectual property, Peter Steinberger decided to rename the project. After careful consideration, he chose the new name Moltbot.

Molt: Implies shedding/shelling like a lobster or crab, symbolizing the project becoming stronger after changes, while retaining the resilient spirit of “crustaceans”.

Seconds of Horror: Old Account Snatched

Renaming is usually a routine operation for open-source projects, but the subsequent plot twist surprised everyone.

After Peter officially announced the project rename and released the old Twitter (X) handle @clawdbot, within just seconds, the handle was snatched by cryptocurrency scammers (Handle Squatters) who had been lying in wait.

Fake Token Scam and Price Rollercoaster

After snatching the account, the scammers quickly exploited the trust and fame accumulated by the account to launch a cryptocurrency named $CLAWD.

Many unsuspecting fans and investors saw the “official account” tweeting and mistakenly thought it was an official token issued by the Clawdbot project or a new move by Peter himself, so they rushed to buy in.

The situation quickly spiraled out of control, and Peter Steinberger had to urgently post multiple tweets to debunk the rumor:

“I NEVER launched a coin. I never will. That account was grabbed seconds after I renamed. It is a SCAM.”

As the truth came to light, the price of the $CLAWD token plummeted in a short time, causing significant losses to many investors who blindly followed the trend.

Warnings and Reflections

This incident once again sounded the alarm for open-source developers and community users:

1. For Developers: Be extremely careful when rebranding or releasing social media handles. Releasing high-value accounts has a high probability of being instantly snatched by black market automated scripts. Keeping the old account as a Redirect might be a safer approach.
2. For Users: In the Web3 and cryptocurrency field, “Don’t Trust, Verify” is the eternal rule. Even investment information released by seemingly “official” accounts must be cross-verified through multiple channels (official website, GitHub repository, founder’s personal main account).

Currently, the Moltbot project continues development, and Peter Steinberger also hopes that the community can refocus on the features of this open-source AI assistant itself, rather than this absurd crypto drama.

This article is for information sharing only and does not constitute any investment advice. Please be wary of online scams.