In recent days, the dispute between "Yescoin founder" Zhang and Wang has attracted a lot of attention. The commercial dispute has escalated into a criminal case. Some people lament that this is the work of "mysterious forces," while others believe that Zhang, who has already become a criminal suspect, deserves the outcome. As a web3 criminal lawyer, without being commissioned by the parties involved, Lawyer Liu cannot access the case files regarding Zhang's alleged crime of "illegally obtaining data from computer information systems." He can only discuss the compliance issues that web3 entrepreneurs should pay attention to based on his understanding of web3 entrepreneurs and the criminal cases he has personally handled.

I. Case Background

According to information currently disclosed by platforms such as "Wu Says" and Odaily News, we can roughly understand that the Ton ecological mini-game Yescoin platform is facing a commercial dispute between partners Wang and Zhang (the Zhang Chi mentioned in the previous screenshot announcement). On February 12, 2025, Zhang was arrested by the police in Hangzhou on suspicion of "illegally obtaining data from computer information systems." Of course, Wang's side does not recognize Zhang's status as a partner.

On February 13, Zhang was taken by the police to Shanghai. The article published by Odaily states that "sent to Shanghai for trial on February 13," which is slightly misleading. In criminal cases, a person cannot be immediately tried after being arrested; they must first undergo investigation by public security organs and review by the procuratorate before being tried by the court. Generally, the cycle for criminal cases is at least six months before they can enter the court trial stage. Moreover, based on Lawyer Liu's experience, it should be the Shanghai police who carried out the arrest in Hangzhou, but the local police in Hangzhou would cooperate according to legal regulations. Ultimately, the suspect was taken back to Shanghai by the Shanghai police. If Zhang cannot be released on bail, he should currently be detained in a detention center in a certain district of Shanghai.

According to Wu Says' "Exclusive Interview with Yescoin Teams: Unclear Equity Leads to Bad Consequences, Power Struggles over Control" and Odaily's "In-Depth Investigation of the 'Yescoin Founder' Arrest Incident: Internal Struggles for Power, Hard Forks, and Idealism," Zhang's team has always believed that their position or role is at the partner level. However, Wang believes that Zhang is not a project partner but is merely leveraging the community resources he controls to demand excessively high prices. After negotiations between the two sides failed, the Hangzhou team led by Zhang removed the data account permissions of the software owner, Old Wang, in November 2024, which may have led to the incident.

II. What is "Illegally Obtaining Data from Computer Information Systems"?

According to Odaily's information, Zhang is currently suspected of the crime of "illegally obtaining data from computer information systems."

This crime is stipulated in Article 285, Paragraph 2 of China's Criminal Law, which mainly regulates "violating national regulations, invading computer information systems outside the provisions of the previous paragraph (i.e., invading systems outside national affairs, national defense construction, and cutting-edge scientific and technological fields), or using other technical means to obtain data stored, processed, or transmitted in that computer information system, or illegally controlling that computer information system," in serious circumstances.

This crime has two levels: for serious circumstances, one can be sentenced to imprisonment for up to three years or criminal detention, and may also be fined or face a single fine; for particularly serious circumstances, one can be sentenced to imprisonment for more than three years but less than seven years, and fined.

What are the standards for these two levels? According to current judicial interpretations, the standard for "serious circumstances" is:

(1) Obtaining identity authentication information for network financial services such as payment settlement, securities trading, and futures trading in more than ten sets;

(2) Obtaining more than five hundred sets of identity authentication information other than those in item (1);

(3) Illegal gains exceeding five thousand yuan or causing economic losses exceeding ten thousand yuan;

(4) Other serious circumstances.

The standard for "particularly serious circumstances" is behavior or consequences that exceed five times the above standards.

It is still unknown which specific regulation Zhang violated to be filed, but based on my practical experience, the possibility of item (3) is quite high.

III. A Few Compliance Suggestions for Web3 Entrepreneurship

Setting aside the dispute between Zhang and Wang of the Yescoin platform, we have seen too many criminal cases of partnership disputes where "brothers become enemies" in practice. The main reason is quite consistent with the Yescoin platform, which is that partners, shareholders, core employees, and even ordinary employees did not make prior equity arrangements. This might be manageable in the early stages of entrepreneurship when everyone can rely on brotherly bonds to build their business, but once profits, especially substantial profits, start to emerge, it is inevitable that people's hearts will waver, and everyone wants a larger share.

In fact, we often see common cases where shareholders "resort to criminal means," such as "embezzlement" and "tax-related crimes." These are definitely the most commonly used weapons in business warfare. Although relevant departments have consistently emphasized that criminal means should not be used to intervene in civil and commercial disputes, the reality is just that—reality. As web3 companies continue to increase, some computer-related crimes have also begun to appear in shareholder disputes, marking a new discovery of criminal risks in web3.

Therefore, young web3 entrepreneurs must pay attention to pre-compliance. Not a single legal document should be overlooked, and they should not just download templates from Baidu or Google. It is best to have professional lawyers draft or review these documents to eliminate commercial and criminal legal risks as much as possible before and during the startup phase.

As web3 lawyers, we strongly recommend that all entrepreneurs have their own consulting lawyers, especially those who understand criminal defense in web3. This is not just about lawyers wanting to "promote themselves" to earn legal fees; it is mainly because we have witnessed too many legal risks in reality, and many criminal legal risks could have been completely avoided in the early stages of occurrence. There could even be win-win situations, but due to the lack of reliable lawyers' involvement, the situation ultimately deteriorates into a lose-lose scenario, which is truly regrettable.

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