Other users on X said even neutral references to Bitcoin led to moderation. The decision follows statements in which Steinberger said scammers tried to profit from the popularity of OpenClaw, and that he received harassment and threats tied to cryptocurrency activity.
“On this project, they’ve been swarming me,” he said. “Every half hour, someone came into Discord and spammed it, and we had to block people.”
He said that led to the no-Bitcoin, no-crypto, no-finance rule.
“I’m not interested in that, and this is a space about the project, not finance stuff,” Steinberger told Friedman. The spam got so bad, Steinberger said he “could barely see people talking about the project because it was like swarms.”
Some users on X tried to dissuade Steinberger from enforcing a strict crackdown on crypto conversations, though their pleading appears to have fallen on deaf ears—at least for now.
While there is no public indication that Steinberger’s Discord policy is connected to OpenAI or to Altman’s involvement with World, his public comments also drew complaints from users who say cryptocurrency is the best use case for AI agents like OpenClaw.
