Hey everyone, it’s January 30 evening, 2026, and this month has felt like a non-stop rollercoaster—especially for this one project. Clawdbot barely got famous before being forced into Moltbot, which survived a grand total of 3 days. Then this morning Peter Steinberger (@steipete) drops on X: “The lobster has molted into its final form” 🦞 — welcome to OpenClaw, new domain openclaw.ai, new X handle @openclaw, GitHub moved to github.com/openclaw/openclaw. Stars just blew past 110k (site still modestly says 100k+, reality is racing toward 112k), website traffic hit 2 million in a week. The hype level? Lobster-in-space tier.
My previous posts on Clawdbot and Moltbot didn’t land super hard—probably because everyone was already memeing the name changes. But now that it’s finally stable, I want to write one more time—not just chasing the rename drama, but using this absurd “lobster molting comedy” as a mirror: the real, ridiculous cost of an open-source AI agent project going viral in 2026. Viral spread + trademark landmine + security holes + crypto vultures circling—all exploding in under a week. Even Peter, the battle-hardened founder (sold PSPDFKit and was supposed to be chilling in retirement), almost got wrecked. For the rest of us mortals? A very expensive, very funny lesson.
The Rename Trilogy: From “Holy Shit It’s Blowing Up” to “Help I’m Bald”
Act 1: Clawdbot (original name, late 2025 – Jan 27)
Peter, post-exit boredom, spends a weekend building a self-hosted personal AI agent that hijacks your WhatsApp/Telegram/Slack to handle emails, calendars, browser tasks. Brain powered by Claude, so naturally named Clawd (Claude’s reload monster) + bot. It catches fire: GitHub stars explode past 10k in a week, people posting about buying dedicated Mac Minis as servers. Anthropic politely emails on Jan 27 (Peter says they were “really nice”) saying “hey, that claw looks a lot like our Claude.” Peter: “Fine, fine, I’ll change it.”
Act 2: Moltbot (temporary shell, Jan 27–29, lifespan: 3 days)
Community brainstorms overnight, lands on “Molt” (lobster molting = growth). New domain molt.bot, new handle @moltbot. Rename day turns into instant public humiliation: old handle and GitHub org released → crypto scammers snatch them in seconds, pump a fake $CLAWD meme coin to millions in market cap before it craters. Peter’s personal account glitches briefly, DMs flooded with “where’s the airdrop bro?” He rage-tweets: “Anthropic forced the rename! Not my choice! Stop harassing me! No tokens ever!” Project instantly shifts from “cool tool” to “live security incident.”
Act 3: OpenClaw (the real final shell, Jan 30 today)
Moltbot was too clunky (everyone reading it as “Molt-bot” or “Multy the weird one”), community roasted it (“who named this at 5 a.m.?”), Peter himself admitted “Molt didn’t grow on me.” This time they did homework: trademark check (zero conflicts), new name OpenClaw = “open + claw,” lobster soul intact. Peter’s blog post stays calm: “Your assistant. Your machine. Your rules.” No shots at Anthropic, big thanks to the security folks (they contributed formal models to catch prompt injection), and he says he’s figuring out full-time maintainer support.
This Isn’t Just a Meme—It’s 2026 Open-Source Agent Crash Course (With Laughs)
On the surface it’s a name-change joke, but underneath it’s the entire ecosystem in miniature: everyone hates cloud black boxes, self-hosted agents are exploding, but exploding means every weak point gets lit up at once.
- Trademark minefield: Anthropic’s request was fair (Clawd really did look like Claude), but the rename window was so short crypto vultures swooped in instantly.
- Security black holes: We already knew exposed dashboards leak keys—now even social accounts get jacked and scam DMs flood in. Prompt injection remains unsolved.
- Community: blessing and curse: Discord has thousands, ClawdHub skills keep pouring in, stars keep climbing. But the complaints are loud and real—“Moltbot was a 5 a.m. panic decision, tags got stolen”; “rename too rushed, momentum killer, newbies lost”; “one rename LLC”; “ads can’t keep up with the name changes”; “name change singularity is here”; “Moltbot worst name ever”; “ClawdBot dead, MoltBot dead, OpenClaw barely resurrected.” Some even joked it’s “just dodging security issues.”
These roasts hit the nerve: hype feels great until trust costs skyrocket and people go from “this is awesome” to “another rename?? I’m not renaming my folders again.” Peter’s experience almost wasn’t enough—crypto nearly ate him. We chase “my own AI employee,” but massively underestimate the structural vulture chain of law, speculation, and security. In 2026’s agent era, speed wins battles, but stability, security, and please-god-don’t-rename-again branding win wars. Otherwise this lobster molts until it’s completely bald—and so does our enthusiasm.
Three painful (and funny) lessons:
- Don’t pick “cute but infringing” names — check trademarks early, have a rollout plan, or crypto bros will thank you for the free money.
- When it goes viral, lock security down yesterday — no public exposure, use Cloudflare Tunnel + strict auth, isolate workspaces.
- Community is magic and chaos — hype brings contributors, but also noise, scams, and collective “wait it changed again??” exhaustion. Stay vigilant, don’t let the memes kill the project.
Closing: The Lobster Stopped Molting—Let’s Not Go Bald
OpenClaw’s core is unchanged: local-first, cross-app, proactive agent, privacy by default. This rename rollercoaster-slash-comedy-slash-horror-show actually proves the demand is real—people will pay (in time, hardware, sanity) for “my own AI employee,” even if the journey feels like a bad sitcom.
Haven’t tried it yet? Start at openclaw.ai, small steps: notifications + calendar first. Tech nerds: star github.com/openclaw/openclaw right now.
The self-hosted AI story of 2026 is just beginning. Let’s hope we all learn fast and don’t let our own lobsters molt until they’re completely bald.
You migrated yet? Did the rename break you? Got scam DMs that made you laugh-cry? Vent in the comments. Stay paranoid, have fun (and please no more renames). 🦞😂