Original | Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)
On the evening of March 7, the Ton ecosystem mini-game Yescoin announced on the X platform that "Yescoin founder and Zhejiang University student Zhang Chi (Zoroo) was taken away by the Shanghai police from Hangzhou due to disputes with partner Wang Mouxin (Old Wang)." Yescoin is a project that gained significant popularity during last year's Ton mini-game craze, with over ten million users at its peak, so the news of the founder's arrest has garnered widespread attention from the community.
According to Odaily Planet Daily's inquiry with the Yescoin team, Zhang Chi was arrested by the police in Hangzhou on February 12, suspected of illegally obtaining data from computer information systems, and was sent to Shanghai for trial on February 13. Currently, no one except for his lawyer can contact Zhang Chi. The dispute between Zhang Chi and partner Old Wang did not occur suddenly, but has been ongoing since last July due to internal interests and rights distribution issues. The specific timeline is as follows:
On July 11, 2024, differences arose due to unclear internal interest distribution, but a reconciliation occurred at the end of July;
From August to November 2024, Old Wang and Zhang Chi continued to argue over the internal rights distribution of the project;
On November 7, 2024, Zhang Chi's side removed Old Wang's permissions in the project from the Shanghai team he formed;
In December 2024, the Yescoin server in Hangzhou experienced data loss, and the Hangzhou team reported it, but the police did not file a case;
On February 10, 2025, Yescoin was attacked, and ownership of the Telegram Bot and main channel was lost;
On February 12, 2025, Zhang Chi was arrested on suspicion of illegally obtaining data from computer information systems;
On March 7, 2025, the Hangzhou Yescoin official Twitter team posted on behalf of Zhang Chi.
Disputes over interests among partners are common issues in many startups, but it is puzzling why this particular dispute escalated to a criminal case of "illegally obtaining data from computer information systems." According to the Hangzhou Yescoin team, lawyers have communicated with Zhang Chi several times, accusing him of illegally occupying computer system data owned by Old Wang, with the following three main pieces of evidence:
Old Wang's company owns the software copyright of the Yescoin project;
Old Wang's company has formal labor contracts with the Shanghai outsourcing team;
The Hangzhou team removed the data account permissions of the software owner Old Wang without authorization in November 2024.
To further understand the situation, Odaily interviewed both Old Wang and the team controlling the Yescoin official Twitter, but found that both sides have completely different views on the ongoing dispute, resulting in two entirely different "Zhang Chis" from their perspectives…
Old Wang: Zhang Chi is not the Yescoin founder, illegally seizing project control
Old Wang's side believes that Zhang Chi is not the Yescoin founder and has illegally seized control of the project. For detailed accusations, readers can refer to the full document, and Odaily Planet Daily will summarize the key parts below.
Old Wang (Old Wang) is the founder and investor of the 3ww3 Asia-Africa-Latin America community. He claims that Zhang Chi joined the 3ww3 Asia-Africa-Latin America community in September 2022 and invested 100,000 RMB, but withdrew the investment on February 20, 2024, citing financial difficulties.
At the same time, according to Old Wang, Yescoin was initiated by Old Wang and Kevin in February 2024 and officially launched at the end of March. From the project's inception until early June, Zhang Chi did not participate in any work related to Yescoin, as his core focus was on his own Tonverse project.
It was not until early June 2024 that Zhang Chi approached Old Wang and Kevin to try to get involved in the Yescoin project. After assisting Kevin with a rejected product feature, he was assigned to project management on June 20. However, Old Wang stated that on July 1, Zhang Chi communicated his desire to start a new project and secure initial funding, to which Old Wang did not respond.
On July 11, 2024, the conflict between the two sides erupted, with Zhang Chi seizing control of Yescoin, removing Old Wang's permissions in the project Lark organization, and allowing some members (now the Hangzhou Yescoin team) to control the project. According to Old Wang, after seizing control of the account, Zhang Chi played a "double agent," unilaterally announcing to other team members that he was the overall leader of Yescoin while deceiving Old Wang and other partners into believing he was helping to "clear the mines." On July 19, under Zhang Chi's leadership, the entire Yescoin team signed a reform agreement, which involved changing core account permissions, establishing a basic salary system, and promising not to hold anyone accountable for the events of July 11.
However, after the signing of the agreement on July 19, 2024, the conflicts over rights and interests between Old Wang and Zhang Chi within Yescoin did not subside. Zhang Chi repeatedly requested to obtain the co-founder status of Yescoin and drafted multiple organizational reform proposals to increase his actual control over Yescoin, but Old Wang did not approve. However, Old Wang claimed that during this period, Zhang Chi had already publicly declared himself a co-founder of Yescoin.
After several months of unsuccessful negotiations, on November 7, 2024, Zhang Chi initiated a "hard fork" within the company, removing Old Wang and others' permissions from the project Lark and severing all rights associations between Old Wang and his Shanghai team with the Yescoin project, making himself the sole responsible person for the project. Prior to this, on November 4, Zhang Chi had also established a salary system for all Yescoin employees.
However, Old Wang stated that although he and partner Kevin wanted to resolve the issue through communication and formally distribute salaries, Zhang Chi and his core team deliberately chose not to take salaries in an attempt to exclude founder Old Wang from the team. Subsequently, Zhang Chi and his main team members Eric and Tang obtained all permissions for the Yescoin project and appointed themselves as founders and partners.
Regarding the salary issues of the Asia-Africa-Latin America Research Institute and Yescoin, Old Wang revealed to Odaily that the Asia-Africa-Latin America Research Institute did not initially exist in a corporate organizational form; it was just a gathering of people wanting to do something together, so no labor contracts were signed. However, Old Wang has been reimbursing the community's monthly (non-expectant return) living expenses. At the same time, the salary of the Yescoin team was not deliberately delayed, but involved distribution issues among early members of the Asia-Africa-Latin America team and later new members, which included many internal problems, and the team has been discussing specific solutions.
Hangzhou Yescoin Team: The core dispute is Old Wang's unwillingness to share profits, the team decided to hard fork!
However, the Hangzhou Yescoin team, which issued a statement supporting Zhang Chi, has a vastly different view of Zhang Chi than Old Wang's description. They assert that Zhang Chi is indeed the founder of Yescoin and actively negotiated with Old Wang to secure rights for team members, but ultimately had to proceed with a hard fork out of necessity!
Eric joined the 3WW3 Asia-Africa-Latin America Research Institute full-time in March 2023, but all members, including him, did not sign any labor contracts or partnership agreements, and even the 3WW3 Asia-Africa-Latin America Research Institute does not have a domestic entity. Eric claims that as the main operator, he has been involved in the entire development of the Yescoin project since March 2024, with Zhang Chi serving as the product manager, and the project’s Telegram Bot, main channel, and official Twitter are all under Zhang Chi's name. Old Wang has been working on financing and business matters for the 3WW3 Asia-Africa-Latin America Research Institute, but he did not participate in the Yescoin project from the beginning; it was only after Yescoin became popular in May 2024 that he claimed to be the founder of Yescoin to better negotiate financing.
Eric stated that the real reason for the conflict between Zhang Chi and Old Wang was that since the establishment of the 3WW3 Asia-Africa-Latin America Research Institute, the company's entity and employee rights had not been confirmed. At this time, Yescoin was participating in the TON official The Open League hackathon and had already received about $500,000 in rewards. Therefore, Zhang Chi represented the Hangzhou team in negotiations with Old Wang to determine the company's organizational structure and employee rights. However, Old Wang repeatedly evaded and obstructed this issue. After several unsuccessful negotiations, Zhang Chi removed Old Wang's permissions on July 11, but Old Wang returned to the team at the end of July after signing a reform agreement.
However, during the negotiations in July, Old Wang had already registered the core code of the Yescoin project under his company "Shanghai Buzhi Network Technology Co., Ltd." and applied for software copyright in the name of the company. Furthermore, Old Wang signed formal labor contracts with an outsourcing team under this company and conducted some market and operational work between July and November 2024, which later became the sharpest weapon Old Wang used against Zhang Chi.
At the same time, as negotiations between Zhang Chi and Old Wang broke down in November, the Hangzhou team lost confidence in Old Wang and decided to proceed with a hard fork! Eric stated that throughout the process, the Hangzhou team controlled the Yescoin server, products, operations, and design permissions, and the hard fork merely removed Old Wang's permissions in Lark again, along with the development and database permissions of the code.
However, Old Wang did not give up easily. In December 2024, the Yescoin server in Hangzhou experienced data loss (unilaterally transferred by the upstream service provider). The Hangzhou team reported it to the police, but the police did not file a case. Ultimately, the Hangzhou team migrated the server based on their original code and data, combined with the data backup services still running on the server. Later, as Old Wang was responsible for Yescoin's external business and financing, he leveraged his connections with the TON Foundation to transfer the permissions of the Yescoin project's Telegram Bot and main channel on February 10, 2025. During this time, Zhang Chi, as the account owner, did not have his 2FA and BOT account verification functions activated and received no notifications.
On February 12, while Eric was still contemplating how to address this issue, the police arrived at the Huasheng Building in Gongshu District around 7:50 AM and took Zhang Chi and Eric away. Eric recalled that the police inquired specifically about the issue of Zhang Chi removing Old Wang's permissions in November 2024. After giving his statement, Eric was released, while Zhang Chi was transferred to Shanghai the next day.
The Quiet Cry of Idealistic Entrepreneurs
Looking back at Zhang Chi's personal annual summary released on January 30, 2025, the metaphors regarding July 11 and November 7 have become clear. In the article, Zhang Chi stated, "July was the most stressful, anxious, and doubtful time of my life so far," but for Old Wang, Eric, and everyone involved in this dispute, the feelings were certainly the same. The 3WW3 Asia-Africa-Latin America Research Institute was once the most idealistic startup in the Chinese-speaking Web3 community, but now, due to entanglements of interests leading to litigation, it is something no one wishes to see. As Zhang Chi said in his 2024 summary, "In the chaos, most of the core parties are my friends."
The Yescoin incident escalated from an internal dispute over interests to a criminal case, serving as a warning to Web3 investors, founders, and industry practitioners. The decentralized ideals depicted by Web3 and DAO organizations are indeed alluring, but if they are only built on the soil of idealism, lacking a clear equity structure and legal agreements, they may sow the seeds of future disputes over profit distribution. Finding a balance between the ideals of decentralization and the realities of business governance is a question that all Web3 entrepreneurs need to contemplate.
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