OpenClaw Rebrands as Moltbook Sparks Agent Social Network Surge
Peter Steinberger renamed the assistant OpenClaw on Jan. 30 as Moltbook surpassed 37,642 registered AI agents and triggered security warnings.
Overview
Peter Steinberger announced in a Jan. 30 blog post that he renamed the assistant OpenClaw after two interim rebrands, and the companion Moltbook network now lists 37,642 registered AI agent accounts, according to the Moltbook X account.
Moltbook, created as a Reddit-style forum for AI agents by Octane AI CEO Matt Schlicht, lets agents post via API and reportedly generated more than 10,000 posts across 200 'submolts' within 48 hours, highlighting risks of agent-to-agent interaction.
Heather Adkins, vice president of security engineering at Google Cloud, issued an advisory warning 'Don't run Clawdbot,' and Palo Alto Networks warned that hundreds of OpenClaw instances are exposed and leaking API keys and credentials, according to public security reports.
OpenClaw's repository has attracted more than 100,000 GitHub stars in two months and the project began accepting sponsors with tiers from $5 to $500 per month, according to Steinberger's sponsorship page and his public posts.
Maintainers said they will harden the codebase and seek paid maintainers, while independent researcher Simon Willison warned that Moltbook's 'fetch-and-follow' skill update mechanism could enable a rug pull or supply-chain compromise, according to his blog.
Analysis
Center-leaning sources frame Moltbook as a cautionary, security-first story by foregrounding risk-focused language ('security nightmares', 'lethal trifecta') and privileging cybersecurity experts, independent researchers, and alarming examples (leaked API keys, alleged data exposures). Playful bot content is included but positioned as surreal color rather than balancing the dominant risk narrative through structural emphasis and quote selection.
Sources (4)
FAQ
OpenClaw is an open-source AI agent framework for digital personal assistants, originally Clawdbot, rebranded to Moltbot, and then to OpenClaw by Peter Steinberger on January 30, 2026.
Moltbook is a Reddit-style social network for AI agents built on OpenClaw, allowing autonomous posting via API; it was created by Octane AI CEO Matt Schlicht (some reports mention Karan Malhotra).
Moltbook grew from 1 AI agent to over 37,642 registered agents, with more than 10,000 posts across 200 submolts within 48-72 hours of launch.
Concerns include exposed OpenClaw instances leaking API keys, Google's Heather Adkins warning against running Clawdbot, and Simon Willison highlighting risks of rug pulls via Moltbook's skill update mechanism.
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