OpenClaw Founder Advises Young People to Avoid Crypto

Original | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)

Author | Golem (@web 3_golem)

On February 27, when a user asked OpenClaw’s founder Peter Steinberger on X, “What’s the best advice for a 20-year-old?”, Peter Steinberger bluntly replied, “Don’t waste your time on cryptocurrency.” As the founder of the current hottest AI product, Peter Steinberger has never hidden his disdain for cryptocurrency. He has warned crypto professionals not to harass him, and even mentioning Bitcoin in OpenClaw’s Discord can result in a ban.

This biting remark sparked a wave of memes and self-deprecation within the crypto community. But unlike when the market slumped and crypto professionals declared “crypto is dead,” the statement “don’t waste your time on cryptocurrency” struck a nerve in the crypto industry when it was offered as advice to young people by a top AI entrepreneur.

It brings the anxiety to the forefront—cryptocurrency is no longer the optimal choice for today’s youth.

Looking back to 2011, when crypto OG and BitaBit founder Chang Jia advised college students to invest all 6,000 yuan in Bitcoin, his response was considered one of the most compelling examples of long-term thinking in the crypto industry and a strong case for young people to join. However, Chang Jia himself did not remain in the crypto space; by 2023, BitaBit had ceased publishing cryptocurrency-related news and shifted its focus to AI, the metaverse, and other fields. In 2024, after Chang Jia ventured into AI entrepreneurship, he completely disappeared from the crypto world.

Chang Jia, who was once criticized for being ahead of his time, has now become a reality as the crypto industry is being drained by AI. Talent is migrating, capital is being reallocated, and attention is shifting.

Another crypto OG and co-founder & CEO of Cobo, Shen Yu is also one of the early representatives of the Bitcoin mining community. As a multi-cycle survivor, Shen Yu frequently shares his insights on market phases and investment lessons on social media, earning great popularity within the crypto community.

However, recently Shen Yu has transformed from a crypto OG into an AI blogger, with over 80% of his social media content in the past month focused on OpenClaw, while crypto-related posts have become scarce; Shen Yu himself has joked about his successful transformation.

Shen Yu’s exploration and interest in AI remain at a personal level; his company’s business and personal career are still primarily focused on crypto. Therefore, we can interpret Shen Yu’s fascination with AI as a positive habit of proactively improving himself and staying ahead of emerging trends during market downtime. However, the real migration of talent from crypto to AI is indeed taking place.

On February 4, Anthony Rose, a senior executive at zkSync, announced he would be leaving after four years at Matter Labs, likely transitioning to AI; on February 5, Nader Dabit, Developer Advocacy Lead at EigenLayer, also announced his departure from EigenLayer to become Head of Growth at an AI company, stating he had “joined the future.”

One of the most notable recent exits from the crypto space is Kyle Samani, co-founder of Multicoin Capital, who announced his departure from crypto to focus on AI, robotics, and other fields. Known for his early bets on Solana, his exit dealt a blow to confidence in the crypto community. Even more striking, on the day he left, Samani disparaged the crypto industry, saying, “Cryptocurrency isn’t nearly as interesting as many people—including myself—once thought.”

Recommended reading: “Is There More to Kyle Samani’s Exit Than Meets the Eye?”

Native crypto VCs are also unwilling to spend more time on the crypto industry.

On February 28, according to the Wall Street Journal, the crypto venture capital firm Paradigm is planning to raise a new fund focused on AI and robotics, with a potential size of up to $1.5 billion. Paradigm is one of the most purely crypto-native capital firms; it gained widespread recognition in 2019 for investing in and incubating Uniswap, and subsequent early investments in other crypto projects—such as Lido, Optimism, dYdX, and Blur—have also been successful, establishing this research-driven VC as a peer to a16z crypto.

This shift by Paradigm is therefore significant.

If cryptocurrency were still in a phase of rapid innovation, continuously producing projects capable of supporting billion-dollar investment scales, Paradigm would have no need to establish a dedicated heavyweight fund for AI. But the reality is that the narrative around cryptocurrency infrastructure—such as L1s, L2s, and DEXs—has become highly saturated, and the number of truly high-quality early-stage projects capable of paradigm-shifting breakthroughs is now extremely limited.

There are no good projects left to invest in across the entire crypto VC space. The data makes this even clearer: over the past four years, the number of venture capital investments in the crypto industry has declined year over year. In 2022, there were 1,639 funding rounds in the crypto primary market; by 2025, this number had dropped to 829, with early-stage funding’s share falling from 50% to below 35%.

Source: What will still be tradable in the crypto market a year from now?

When there are no more investment opportunities in the crypto industry, AI—the sector currently at the height of its trend—naturally becomes the ideal destination for crypto capital. From foundational large models to AI agents, from computing chips to robotics, AI not only accommodates massive capital inflows but also continuously generates growth narratives, making it the world’s largest reservoir for capital today.

For a VC managing over $12.7 billion in assets, the core question has never been “whether faith has wavered,” but “whether the return function still holds.” As the number of projects the crypto industry can support declines, betting solely on crypto increases portfolio risk and reduces return elasticity. In this context, persisting with a “crypto-native” approach becomes irrational.

Therefore, Paradigm’s proactive expansion into AI is driven by broader industry trends—not merely a strategic choice by an individual firm, but a signal of the industry’s current phase.

In terms of market attention, crypto is the industry best at riding trends—whether it’s political hot topics, cutting-edge technology, or major social headlines, there’s always a related project or meme being hyped up in the crypto space. In the past, every time the AI industry saw a technological advancement or product innovation, crypto responded with a wave of “Crypto+AI” projects or meme coins designed to capture market attention.

After OpenClaw went viral, the crypto community initially jumped on the trend by promoting meme coins with the same name, commanding OpenClaw to trade tokens, and placing bets on prediction markets to make money. However, crypto users later became more authentic, shifting their focus from “how to crypto-ify OpenClaw” to “how to truly use OpenClaw.”

Many crypto researchers have begun consistently releasing tutorials on installing and using OpenClaw, openly sharing their AI workflows, even detailing how to train personal AI agents to assist with coding, investment research, and content generation. Some crypto KOLs have even started side businesses charging beginners to install OpenClaw for them.

The offline AI networking events organized by the crypto community were also well-attended. The most popular recent offline event was the "Web4 China Tour" spearheaded by crypto OG Kong Jianping, which ran from February 25 to March 8 and took place in five Chinese cities, with primary topics centered on OpenClaw and Agent, with almost no crypto-related content.

This is no longer about riding trends—it’s a genuine shift in attention, as self-proclaimed progressive crypto enthusiasts begin to fear falling behind in the age of AI.

The offline AI event in the crypto community was packed with attendees.

Why are crypto professionals so obsessed with AI?

The crypto space has always been the industry with the highest concentration of "super individuals"—including numerous independent developers, traders, and content creators—who naturally seek to improve tool efficiency to compensate for limited personal productivity. Therefore, when AI can significantly amplify individual output, crypto users will be among the first to embrace it.

Moreover, the core of crypto culture is inherently steeped in geek spirit and technological reverence. Although the "tech narrative" has been downplayed in recent years, most crypto enthusiasts still believe that "underlying technology can change the world," and now AI embodies a more revolutionary technological spirit than blockchain, naturally sparking intense enthusiasm among crypto users.

Of course, a more realistic reason is the crypto market's lull, during which AI continues to generate "new things," while crypto merely restructures old narratives. With no native crypto innovation and no significant wealth effects, the entire crypto ecosystem is barely holding on through minor externalities from prediction markets and RWA. At this point, the AI industry’s new discussion topics and cognitive stimulation are less about stealing crypto’s attention and more about filling the psychological void left by crypto enthusiasts as market momentum slows.

Finally, returning to the beginning of this article, the founder of OpenClaw’s statement attracted attention in the crypto community not because of its disdain, but because it voiced a truth that many in crypto are quietly verifying through their actions—the smartest people are reallocating their time.

We are currently experiencing a period in which the rate of wealth generation is declining, while technological productivity is exploding.

On one hand, as the crypto cycle slows, alpha shrinks, and wealth growth flattens, the marginal returns for crypto participants who relied solely on passive behaviors over the past year—such as scrolling for information, chasing trends, and gambling for gains—are diminishing. On the other hand, AI is drastically reducing the time required to solve problems; tasks that once demanded significant human effort—like coding or content creation—can now be completed by models in minutes, far surpassing individual human efficiency.

When the "process of pursuing outcomes" is highly condensed by AI, we may instead gain more free time to engage in activities not aimed at efficiency or profit—seeking "carbon-based meaning," experiencing the world, building cognitive frameworks independent of market fluctuations, and constructing our own values.

In the AI future, what truly widens the gap between people may be aesthetics, independent judgment, and the construction of personal meaning.