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OdailyDepth survey "Yescoin founder" arrested incident: internal power struggle, hard fork and idealism
*Original | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)
Author | Golem (@web3_golem)
On the evening of March 7th, Yescoin, a small game in the Ton ecosystem, announced on X platform that "Yescoin founder, Zhejiang University student Zhang Chi ( Zoroo ) was taken away by Shanghai police from Hangzhou due to disputes with partner Wang Mouxin ( Old Wang )". Yescoin is a project that gained some fame during last year's Ton gaming craze, with a peak of over tens of millions of users. Therefore, the news of the founder's arrest has also received widespread attention from the community.
According to Odaily Star Daily's understanding of the Yescoin team, Zhang Chi was arrested by the police in Hangzhou on February 12 for allegedly illegally obtaining data from computer information systems. He was sent to Shanghai for trial on February 13, and currently no one except his lawyer can contact Zhang Chi in person. The dispute between Zhang Chi and his partner Lao Wang did not happen suddenly, but has been ongoing since July last year due to internal interests and equity distribution issues. The specific timeline is as follows:
Disputes over interests among partners are a common issue for many startup companies, but what is puzzling is why this interest dispute has escalated to a criminal case of "illegally obtaining computer information system data"? According to the Yescoin team in Hangzhou, lawyers have had several rounds of communication with Zhang Chi, identifying Zhang Chi's illegal appropriation of computer system data owned by Lao Wang. There are three main pieces of evidence:
To further understand the ins and outs of the matter, Odaily interviewed Lao Wang and the team behind the official Yescoin, but found that both sides have completely different perspectives on the disputes that have been ongoing, giving rise to two completely different 'Zhang Chi' in their view...
Lao Wang: Zhang Chi is not the founder of Yescoin, illegally seizing control of the project
Mr. Wang Fang believes that Zhang Chi Zhang Chi is not the founder of Yescoin, and illegally seized control of the project. For detailed accusations, readers can refer to the complete document, and Odaily Star Daily will organize key parts in the following text.
Old Wang is the founder and funder of the 3ww3 Afro-Asian community. Zhang Chi joined the 3ww3 Afro-Asian community in September 2022 and invested 10,000 RMB, but withdrew the investment amount on February 20, 2024, citing financial difficulties.
In early June 2024, Zhang Chicao found Lao Wang and Kevin to try to intervene in the Yescoin project. After assisting Kevin in a rejected product feature, he was assigned to project management on June 20. However, Lao Wang indicated that on July 1, Zhang Chi communicated his desire to start a new project and lock in the initial funds, but Lao Wang did not respond.
On July 11, 2024, the contradiction between the two sides erupted. Zhang Chi seized control of Yescoin, removed Lao Wang's authority in the Lark project organization, and allowed some members (now the Hangzhou Yescoin team) to control the project. At the same time, according to Lao Wang, after seizing control of the account, Zhang Chi played a 'double-faced' role, unilaterally declaring himself as the overall head of Yescoin to other executive team members, while deceiving partners like Lao Wang by claiming to be helping 'clear the mines'. On July 19, under Zhang Chi's leadership, the entire Yescoin team signed a reform agreement involving the core account permissions, establishing a basic salary system, and committing not to hold the events of July 11 accountable.
However, after the agreement was signed on July 19, 2024, until November, the conflict between Lao Wang and Zhang Chi over equity and profit distribution in Yescoin did not subside. Zhang Chi repeatedly requested to obtain the co-founder identity of Yescoin and wrote multiple organizational change proposals in an attempt to increase his controlling rights in Yescoin, but none were approved by Lao Wang. However, Lao Wang claimed that Zhang Chi had publicly declared himself as a co-founder of Yescoin during this period.
After several months of unsuccessful negotiations, on November 7, 2024, Zhang Chi initiated a 'hard fork' within the company, removing the permissions of Lao Wang and others from the project Lark, eliminating any rights and associations between Lao Wang, his Shanghai team, and the Yescoin project, and becoming the sole person in charge of the project. At the same time, prior to this, on November 4, Zhang Chi also established a salary system for all Yescoin employees.
However, Lao Wang stated that despite his efforts to resolve the issue through communication with partner Kevin and to officially distribute salaries, Zhang Chi and the core team deliberately chose not to take salaries and wanted to exclude founder Lao Wang from the team. Subsequently, Zhang Chi and his main team members Eric and Tang obtained all the permissions of the Yescoin project and appointed themselves as founders and partners.
Regarding the salary issue of the Institute of Asia-Africa Studies and Yescoin, Lao Wang revealed to Odaily that the Institute of Asia-Africa Studies did not exist in the form of a company in the early days, but was convened by everyone to do something together, so there was no labor contract signed. However, Lao Wang has always been reimbursing the community for the (non-expected return) living expenses every month. At the same time, the salary of the Yescoin team was not intentionally delayed, but it involved the allocation of early members of the Institute of Asia-Africa Studies and new members who joined later, which involved many internal issues, and the team has been discussing specific solutions.
Hangzhou Yescoin Team: The core dispute is that Lao Wang does not want to share money, so the team decides to hard fork!
But the Hangzhou Yescoin team that supports Zhang Chi in the article is significantly different from the Zhang Chi described by Lao Wang. It stated that Zhang Chi is indeed the founder of Yescoin and actively negotiated with Lao Wang to fight for the rights of team members during the period, but unfortunately had to undergo a hard fork!
**Eric joined 3WW3 Asia-Africa Institute full-time in March 2023, but all members, including him, have not signed any labor contracts or partnership agreements, and even 3WW3 Asia-Africa Institute does not have a domestic entity. Eric claimed to have independently initiated and fully participated in the development of the Yescoin project as the chief operator starting from March 2024. Zhang Chi exists as a product manager, and the project's Telegram Bot, main channel, and official Twitter are all under Zhang Chi's name. Lao Wang has been working on financing and business aspects for 3WW3 Asia-Africa Institute, but Lao Wang did not participate in the Yescoin project from the beginning. Instead, after the popularity of Yescoin in May 2024, he positioned himself as a founder of Yescoin to facilitate external financing discussions.
Eric said that the real reason for the conflict between Zhang Chi and Lao Wang is that since the establishment of the 3WW3 Asia-Africa Institute, the company's main body and employee rights have not been confirmed. At this time, Yescoin participated in The Open League hackathon hosted by the TON official and has already received about 500,000 US dollars in rewards. Therefore, Zhang Chi, on behalf of the Hangzhou team, negotiated with Lao Wang to determine the company's organizational structure and employee rights. However, Lao Wang repeatedly evaded and obstructed on this issue. After several unsuccessful negotiations, Zhang Chi finally removed Lao Wang's authority on July 11, but Lao Wang returned to the team at the end of July due to signing a reform agreement.
However, during the negotiations in July, Lao Wang had already registered the core code of the Yescoin project under the company 'Shanghai BUDONG Network Technology Co., Ltd.' and applied for software copyright under the company's name. Furthermore, Lao Wang signed a formal labor contract with an outsourcing team using this company as the main entity, and conducted some market and operational work between July and November 2024, which also became the sharpest weapon for Lao Wang to stab Zhang Chi in the future.
At the same time, with the breakdown of negotiations between Zhang Chi and Lao Wang in November, the Hangzhou team has lost confidence in Lao Wang, and they have decided to carry out a hard fork! Eric said that from the beginning to the end, the Yescoin server, product, operation, and design permissions are controlled by the Hangzhou team, and the hard fork is just to remove Lao Wang's lark permissions again, and to remove the development and database permissions of the code.
However, Lao Wang did not give up easily. In December 2024, the Yescoin Hangzhou server encountered a loss (unilaterally transferred by the upstream service provider). The Hangzhou team reported the case, but the police did not file a case. In the end, the Hangzhou team, based on their original code and data, combined with the data backup service still running on the server, migrated the server; later, as Lao Wang was always responsible for the external business and financing of Yescoin, on February 10, 2025, he transferred the telegram Bot and main channel permissions of the Yescoin project with the help of the TON Foundation. During this period, Zhang Chi, as the account owner, did not use the 2FA and BOT account verification functions, and did not receive any alerts.
On February 12, while Eric was still figuring out how to handle the matter, the police arrived at Gongshu District Huasheng Building around 7:50 a.m. and took Zhang Chi and Eric away. Eric recalled that the police were inquiring about the issue of Zhang Chi removing Lao Wang's permissions in November 2024. After recording his statement, Eric was released, while Zhang Chi was transferred to Shanghai the next day.
The muted shout of idealistic entrepreneurs
Looking back at Zhang Chi's personal one-year summary released on January 30, 2025, the metaphors about 7.11 and 11.7 are basically clear. Zhang Chi said in the article that "July is the most stressful, anxious, and doubtful time in my life so far", but for Wang, Eric and everyone involved in the whirlpool of this dispute, the feelings must be the same. 3 WW 3 The Asian, African and Latin American Research Institute used to be the most idealistic entrepreneur in the Chinese-speaking Web3 region, but now it is believed that everyone does not want to go to court due to entanglement of interests, as Zhang Chi said in the 2024 summary, "In the melee, most of the core of all parties are my friends".
The Yescoin incident has escalated from an internal dispute to a criminal case, serving as a warning to Web3 investors, startups, and industry practitioners. While the decentralized concepts portrayed by Web3 and DAO organizations are attractive, relying solely on idealistic foundations without clear equity structures and legal agreements may sow the seeds of future profit distribution risks. Finding a balance between decentralized concepts and practical business governance is a question that all Web3 entrepreneurs need to consider.