ClawdBot to MoltBot to OpenClaw: Can You Trust an AI That Can't Keep Its Name?

In late January 2026, a GitHub project called ClawdBot went viral. Within days, it had thousands of stars and breathless tech coverage. Then it became MoltBot. Then OpenClaw. Three names in roughly two weeks. And that rapid rebranding tells us something important about the tool—and the risks of building your workflow around it.

The Name Change Timeline: ClawdBot launched in November 2025, growing slowly until a viral moment in late January 2026. Almost immediately, Anthropic sent a trademark complaint—the "Clawd" name was too close to "Claude." The project became MoltBot. Days later, another rebrand to OpenClaw. The dust hasn't fully settled.

Why Names Matter: A name change might seem trivial. It's not. Every rename broke documentation, tutorials, and community resources. Links went dead. Search results became confusing. Users searching for help found outdated information for deprecated names.

The Deeper Concern: Names are the easy part of building software. If a project can't handle basic trademark research before launch, what else was rushed? If three rebrands happen in two weeks, what does that say about the stability of the underlying code?

The 430,000 Lines Question: OpenClaw's codebase has grown to over 430,000 lines of code. For comparison, that's larger than many commercial operating systems. Rapid growth and viral adoption create pressure to ship fast. Fast shipping often means technical debt and security oversights.

Security Researchers Agree: The naming chaos coincided with security researchers at Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, and others flagging serious concerns. A critical vulnerability (CVE-2026-25253) was discovered. Exposed credentials and tokens were found in enterprise deployments. The speed of growth outpaced security review.

What Stability Looks Like: Compare this to established tools. Slack has been Slack since 2013. Asana has been Asana since 2008. Convoe has been Convoe since launch. Kai has been Kai. Stability in naming reflects stability in development, in leadership, in commitment to users.

The Founder Factor: OpenClaw is largely a one-person project from Peter Steinberger. He's a talented developer, but solo projects face inherent risks. What happens if he loses interest? Gets hired by a big company? Faces burnout from viral success? With corporate tools, there's a company behind the product.

Building on Shifting Sand: When you adopt a tool, you're making a bet on its future. You're investing time in learning it, building workflows around it, trusting it with your data. How confident can you be in a tool that's still figuring out what to call itself?

The Alternative: Established, stable, professionally maintained tools exist. They may not have the hacker appeal of a viral GitHub project, but they won't rename themselves three times while you're trying to get work done.

Our Perspective: Convoe has been Convoe from day one. Kai has been Kai. Tai has been Tai. We did our trademark research before launch. We have a team, not just a single maintainer. When you build your workflow around Convoe, you're building on stable ground.

The Bottom Line: OpenClaw might mature into a stable, reliable tool. Or it might be the next project that flames out after viral success. The naming chaos is a signal. What you do with that signal is up to you.