Goodbye Agent, hello OpenClaw
"It is now the largest, most popular, and most successful open-source project in human history. It is definitely the next ChatGPT."
This isn't some geek's boast, but rather Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's assessment of OpenClaw during an interview this Tuesday.
This open-source AI agent, released by a former Apple developer, saw its GitHub stars surge to 320,000 within three months, surpassing Linux and React. Because its logo resembles a lobster claw, the Chinese community simply calls it "Lobster."
However, the lobster craze is not essentially another AI tool craze, but rather the prelude to the Agentic Economy—a key turning point for AI to move from "being able to talk" to "being able to do things".
From chat assistant to digital employee, this time it's different.
For the past two years, the term "AI Agent" has been repeatedly mentioned, but it has remained largely confined to PowerPoint presentations. It wasn't until the emergence of OpenClaw that this deadlock was truly broken.
Its core difference lies in "execution" rather than "dialogue".
Traditional products like ChatGPT and Claude are essentially question-and-answer tools—you ask, they answer, but the next step still depends on you. OpenClaw, however, represents a completely different next-generation agent: it is authorized to take over the operating system, autonomously calling browsers, code executors, APIs, iMessage, etc., and planning, executing, and modifying tasks according to the objective until the task is completed.
Of course, this fully managed approach carries inherent risks, but that's another story.
Many people compare this moment to the ChatGPT moment in 2022, but I think a more accurate analogy might be: that distant afternoon when Steve Jobs launched the iPhone many years ago.
Innovation hasn't stopped. OpenClaw's official skills marketplace, ClawHub, now offers over 27,000 skills for various AI agents to use for free—this digital employee can do more and more.
Looking further ahead, the popularity of OpenClaw is not simply a passing fad for AI tools, but rather the prelude to the Agentic Economy (Intelligent Agent Economy), and Web3 is naturally the best breeding ground for it.
Why is Web3 the most natural economic vehicle for AI agents?
On the surface, this "lobster" is just a somewhat intelligent executor: automatically checking emails, booking tickets, managing files, and even posting across platforms. But digging deeper, it is precisely the real tipping point for the agentic economy—and Web3 is the most suitable "ocean" for this lobster after it crawls ashore.
The integration of blockchain and "lobster" has a natural advantage of amplifying the effect:
• The x402 protocol allows agents to pay fees and switch AI model providers autonomously using a single wallet, without manual review;
• The ERC-8004 protocol grants agents a portable reputation system and legitimate identity;
• Clawpay, ClawCredit, and ClawRouter enable privacy-focused payments, native credit, and autonomous routing;
• Stablecoins (USDT/USDC) become the Agent's "24/7 bank," perfectly matching the needs of code-driven settlement.
In summary, the automatic execution of smart contracts, permissionless on-chain interaction, and instant global settlement of stablecoins—these characteristics can greatly compensate for the bottlenecks of traditional AI agents in payment loops, identity and reputation, and contract execution.
More innovative scenarios are on the way:
• Circle's open-source Circle Skills allows AI Agents to directly generate USDC payments, cross-chain transfers, and smart contract logic;
• SlowMistTrack Skills provides agents with on-chain AML risk analysis capabilities, enabling them to automatically perform security checks before transactions are made;
• RootData encapsulates thousands of crypto project databases, funding data, token economics, social activity, and more into a Skill, increasing content creation efficiency by 10 times.
Therefore, we have reason to believe that the explosive popularity of OpenClaw is just the prelude, and when integrated into Web3, the agentic economy will unleash amazing potential.
Agentic concept project, currently in the spotlight
KiteAI is a PoAI L1 blockchain for Agents, deeply integrated with the OpenClaw ecosystem: it supports OpenClaw developer activities and allows Agents to autonomously pay for computing resources/API calls.
Currently, KiteAI has joined the Agentic AI Foundation (in collaboration with OpenAI, Google, and others) and is an important infrastructure for the Agentic economy.
https://x.com/GoKiteAI/status/2024738751155716600
Pieverse, an on-chain payment protocol, recently launched Purr-Fect Claw, which transforms OpenClaw into a fully on-chain tool. Users can directly deploy agents within Web2 applications such as Line, Kakao, and WhatsApp to achieve gasless on-chain transactions and operations.
https://x.com/pieverse_io/status/2033791178156757094
GoPlus Security has launched SafuSkill—a security-first skills marketplace based on BNB Chain, integrating a skills marketplace, an automated security scanning engine, and developer tools to help users select security AI Agent Skills.
https://x.com/GoPlusSecurity/status/2032038367266009141?s=20
This is not an AI Agent, but rather the Chinese meme coin of OpenClaw. Like many meme coins that capitalize on trending topics, "Lobster" has also been hyped up due to the popularity of OpenClaw.
https://x.com/WEEX_Official/status/2031680807396601872
"clawd.atg.eth" is a self-hosted personal AI assistant deployed by Ethereum developer Austin Griffith based on the open-source clawd.bot. The agent can independently write, test, and deploy dApps to the Ethereum/Base mainnet, and has produced 14+ production-grade applications (such as the ClawFomo game, PFP prediction market, and Incinerator burning mechanism).
KellyClaude is a personal AI executive assistant created by Austen Allred. Based on the Claude model, it can proactively manage tasks such as schedules, emails, and travel, and actively share its experiences in agent communities such as Moltbook.
Clude.io focuses on an independent memory layer, separating memory from the model to achieve a persistent, private, and cross-model-portable "brain-like" system, perfectly addressing the pain points of Agent's memory and privacy sovereignty.
In conclusion
In 2023, the arrival of ChatGPT boosted the AI data section represented by Fetch.ai (FET), SingularityNET (AGIX) and Ocean Protocol (OCEAN), as well as the early AI+DePin topic sections represented by Render (RNDR), Akash (AKT) and io (IO).
In late 2024, TURBO, GOAT, and Fartcoin triggered an AI meme frenzy, shifting AI's focus from practicality to culture and speculation.
In 2025, the market focus shifted to AI agents as economic entities. Bittensor (TAO), The Graph (GMT), and other projects shifted to supporting AI agent data querying and autonomous transactions, while projects such as SkyAI emphasized multi-agent collaboration.
Now, OpenClaw is further promoting agents to truly execute 24/7 transactions, collaborations, and startups, feeding back into massive on-chain traffic and new DeFi narratives, marking our leap into the Agentic era.
The "lobster" has been launched, and the vast "ocean" of Web3 awaits it.
Are you all ready?
