In-depth Investigation of the "Yescoin Founder" Arrest Incident: Internal Struggles for Power, Hard Forks, and Idealism

Original Title: Odaily In-Depth Investigation of the "Yescoin Founder" Arrest Incident: Internal Struggles for Power, Hard Forks, and Idealism

Original Author: Golem, Odaily Planet Daily

On the evening of March 7, the Ton ecosystem mini-game Yescoin announced on platform X an announcement stating that "Yescoin founder, 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 fame during last year's Ton mini-game craze, peaking with over ten million users, so the news of the founder's arrest garnered widespread attention from the community.

According to Odaily Planet Daily's inquiries 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 arise suddenly but has been ongoing since July of last year due to internal interests and rights distribution issues. The specific timeline is as follows:

• On July 11, 2024, disagreements arose due to unclear internal profit 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 cleared the permissions of the Shanghai team formed by Old Wang in the project;

• In December 2024, Yescoin's Hangzhou server 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 controlled by Zhang Chi posted on his behalf.

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 had several rounds of communication with Zhang Chi, accusing him of illegally occupying the computer system data owned by Old Wang, with the following three main pieces of evidence:

• Old Wang's company holds the software copyright for 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 Yescoin's official Twitter, but found that both sides had completely different views on the ongoing dispute, leading to two entirely different "Zhang Chi" perspectives…

Old Wang: Zhang Chi is not the Founder of Yescoin, Illegally Seizing Project Control

Old Wang's side believes that Zhang Chi is not the founder of Yescoin 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 is the founder and investor of the 3WW3 Asia-Africa-Latin America community, claiming 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 strain.

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 Yescoin-related work and focused entirely 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, and after assisting Kevin in developing 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 enabling 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 mines." On July 19, under Zhang Chi's leadership, the 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, from the signing of the agreement on July 19, 2024, until November, the conflicts over rights and profit distribution between Old Wang and Zhang Chi within Yescoin did not subside. Zhang Chi repeatedly requested to obtain co-founder status in Yescoin and drafted multiple organizational reform proposals to increase his actual control rights in Yescoin, but Old Wang did not approve. Nevertheless, 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" internally, removing Old Wang and others' permissions from the project Lark, severing all rights associations between Old Wang and his Shanghai team and the Yescoin project, and positioning himself as 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 group deliberately chose not to take salaries and aimed to expel 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 merely a gathering of people wanting to do things 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 intentionally delayed but involved distribution issues among early Asia-Africa-Latin America members 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 Reluctance to Share Profits, Team Decides 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 stated that as the main operator, he participated in the entire development of the Yescoin project from March 2024, with Zhang Chi serving as the product manager, and the project Telegram Bot, main channel, and official Twitter were 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 claimed 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, so Zhang Chi represented the Hangzhou team to negotiate with Old Wang to establish the company's organizational structure and employee rights. However, Old Wang repeatedly evaded and obstructed this issue, and after multiple 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 the reform agreement.

However, during the negotiation process in July, Old Wang had already placed the core code of the Yescoin project under his company "Shanghai Does Not Understand Network Technology Co., Ltd." and applied for software copyright as the company entity. Moreover, Old Wang signed formal labor contracts with an outsourcing team under this company and did 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 faith in Old Wang and decided to hard fork! Eric stated that throughout the process, the Yescoin server, products, operations, and design permissions were all controlled by the Hangzhou team, and the hard fork merely removed Old Wang's Lark permissions again, stripping away the development and database permissions of the code.

However, Old Wang did not give up easily. In December 2024, the Yescoin Hangzhou server experienced data loss (unilaterally transferred by the upstream service provider), and the Hangzhou team reported it, 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 still responsible for Yescoin's external business and financing, he leveraged his connections with the TON Foundation to transfer the Telegram Bot and main channel permissions of the Yescoin project on February 10, 2025. During this period, 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 the 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 year-end summary released on January 30, 2025, the metaphors regarding July 11 and November 7 have become clear. Zhang Chi stated in the article, "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 must have been the same. The 3WW3 Asia-Africa-Latin America Research Institute was once one of the most idealistic entrepreneurial platforms in the Chinese-speaking Web3 community, but now, due to profit entanglements leading to legal disputes, it is something no one wishes to see. Zhang Chi also mentioned in his 2024 summary, "In the chaos, most of the core parties are my friends."

Is Zhang Chi's confession merely a facade of false idealism masking a premeditated attempt to seize others' interests? The ultimate truth still awaits the hammer of the law, but the fact that the Yescoin incident has escalated to a criminal case serves as a warning for all Web3 investors, entrepreneurs, and industry practitioners.

The decentralized ideals depicted by Web3 and DAO organizations are indeed alluring, but if they are built solely on the soil of temporary common goals, lacking clear equity structures, legal agreements, and management authority distribution, they will sow the seeds of future profit distribution disputes. Finding a balance between decentralized ideals and real-world business governance is a question that all Web3 entrepreneurs need to contemplate early on.