Riding the AI Hype into a Rug Pull: The Turbulent Rise and Fall of the Fake $CLAWD Token

In the crypto frenzy of early 2026, "AI" has undoubtedly become the word most capable of triggering speculators' nerves. However, when traffic and greed intertwine, pure open-source projects often become breeding grounds for scammers. Recently, the well-known open-source AI assistant ClawdBot (now rebranded as Moltbot) fell victim to a highly representative case of identity theft and token fraud.

A "Digital Battle Royale" from 16 Million to 800,000

The spark for this incident was the sudden appearance of a meme coin named $CLAWD on the Solana platform. Riding the coattails of ClawdBot's recent explosive popularity among developers, the token quickly caught the eye of numerous retail traders. Driven by frenzied social media hype, the market capitalization of $CLAWD briefly surged to a peak of $16 million.

However, the carnival evaporated instantly after project founder Peter Steinberger issued a public clarification. Steinberger stated clearly that he has never issued any token, has no such plans for the future, and has no connection to the project. Following this "denial statement," the market cap of $CLAWD plummeted from approximately $8 million to under $800,000 in a very short period—a crash of over 90%.

For Steinberger, this farce brought not only frustration but active harassment. He wrote angrily on the social platform X: "Please stop pinging me, stop harassing me. I will never do a coin. Any project that lists me as coin owner is a SCAM. You are actively damaging the project."

The Rebranding Turmoil and "Squatted" Official Identities

The scammers succeeded largely by exploiting vulnerabilities during the project's ongoing rebranding process. Due to trademark issues, ClawdBot was forced to rename itself Moltbot. During this transition, errors in migrating GitHub accounts and X handles allowed cryptocurrency shills to maliciously "squat" on or snatch related handles.

These hijacked accounts were subsequently disguised as official identities to market tokens to unsuspecting investors. This precise impersonation led many investors to believe the token was an official part of the AI project's ecosystem. Steinberger stated that he is currently working with GitHub to recover affected accounts and urged users to ignore any cryptocurrency claims linked to the project.

Dual Security Risks Behind the Technology

ClawdBot (Moltbot) is a high-profile tool built by Steinberger, a veteran developer who previously sold a software company for approximately €100 million. Designed as a privacy-focused, locally-run AI assistant, it can deeply integrate with social platforms like Telegram and WhatsApp to automate tasks.

However, this deep system access is a double-edged sword. While fake tokens were rampant, the cybersecurity firm SlowMist also issued a security alert. Investigations revealed that hundreds of ClawdBot gateway instances were exposed to the public internet due to misconfigured user proxies. This exposure put API keys and private chat logs at risk and even created potential for Remote Code Execution (RCE).

While researchers emphasized that these issues stemmed from user configuration errors rather than software flaws, the combination of security risks and fraudulent token activity has put the AI project's reputation to a severe test amidst the whirlwind of viral attention.

BrokersView Reminds You

Amidst the explosion of AI-related concepts, investors are often easily blinded by fake project endorsements. If you are using self-hosted AI tools of this nature, please ensure you configure proxies strictly according to security guidelines to prevent the leakage of API keys and other core credentials.

Investing involves risk; please remain rational and avoid blindly following trends in a fog of information. To learn more about broker risks or to verify platform qualifications, please visit BrokersView.