Exclusive Interview with the Yescoin Teams: Why is There Infighting? Who Does the Project Belong To?

Author: Wu Says Blockchain

On March 7, the TON ecosystem project Yescoin released a tweet stating that Yescoin founder and Zhejiang University alumnus Zhang Chi (Zoroo) was taken away by the Shanghai police from Hangzhou due to a business dispute with partner Wang Mouxin (Old Wang), and the case has escalated into a criminal case. The Yescoin team stated that the product is still operating normally and thanked the community for their concern for Zhang Chi.

The partner Wang Mouxin mentioned in Yescoin's official tweet published a lengthy statement, stating that Zhang Chi has no actual investment relationship with either 3WW3 or any other project; from the start of the Yescoin project in February to early June, Zhang Chi did not participate in any work and focused entirely on his own Tonverse project; in July, Zhang Chi participated in planning and instigating an illegal seizure incident, unlawfully stripping founder Wang Mouxin of his rights and illegally inciting members to take control of the project; on October 31, he conspired on Lark regarding the code information related to online core income sign-in, preparing for an illegal seizure of online income.

The Yescoin Hangzhou Zhang Chi team denied that the project belongs to Wang Mouxin, believing that the team itself has contributed more, and no agreement has been reached regarding profit distribution, leading to all members agreeing to kick Wang out.

Wang Mouxin's Full Defense:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IkVP2CiCrVMQYyBjg5ATutTwZMj5VIt1B0DQ6Lvowg0/edit?usp=sharing

Yescoin Zhang Chi Hangzhou Team Responds in Interview:

Colin: Who exactly is the founding team of Yescoin?

Eric et al.: I am the only person responsible for brand design and marketing design in the project and was one of the earliest participants in this project. From the entire phase of going from 0 to 1, the only information I received about this project was its name—Yescoin. After that, all visual elements, including color selection, style setting (such as pixel style), shape design, and brand tone, were completed independently by me.

During this process, no one reviewed my designs; all creative and visual expressions were decided and presented by me. Therefore, there is no so-called "other person" or "certain person" who completed this entire setup. I can provide all design output process records to prove this. Furthermore, this project was initially incubated by 3WW3, and I was also an early member of 3WW3.

First, let's talk about project execution. From the personnel perspective, the earliest core team consisted of 7 people, including one product manager, two backend developers, two frontend developers, one operations person, and brand design. Among them, the frontend, backend, and product manager were recruited by Old Wang through outsourcing, belonging to his directly recruited external manpower. The remaining four, namely the core frontend developer, backend developer, operations, and design, were all recruited by Brother Chi through the 3WW3 system in 2023. This was the basic composition of the team at that time, and these 7 people jointly completed the core setup of the project.

Therefore, when Old Wang says "he did it," we say "we did it," and strictly speaking, it should be completed by the members of 3WW3 together. Because at that time, there was no clear concept of a company entity, everyone was pushing the project forward based on contribution and ability.

Next, let's talk about funding issues. If you ask who provided the money, I can tell you clearly that the funding mainly came from 3WW3, as this involves two aspects. First, Mr. Tang, I, and other members of 3WW3 (including Zhang Chi) participated in the project as "human capital" in the form of investment. In other words, we did not receive salaries, but our daily work and labor essentially constituted equity investment in the project.

During this process, since the project had not yet produced actual output, it was impossible to discuss valuation or rights confirmation. However, from the actual situation, our contributions were not just physical labor but formed real project value. So even if these inputs were not cash, they were still tangible investments.

Colin: As Old Wang said, the money from start to finish was all from Old Wang?

Eric et al.: We used financing funds. A portion of the funds also came from another investor, but I cannot disclose his name. The funding did not come solely from Old Wang; Eric also contributed, and even we personally invested funds. Although some living expenses were reimbursed, many business expenses we sometimes did not keep track of and just spent as needed. Of course, compared to the major funding, these amounts are not large. Eric spent about 400,000 in total; if needed, we can communicate to see if we can display these records.

Colin: How much do you think Old Wang actually contributed? Including the Asia-Africa-Latin America Research Institute and Yescoin?

Eric: 0. I can clearly say it is 0. We previously compiled data with Zhang Chi and have relevant evidence that directly shows that although Old Wang had funding input behavior, he specifically noted "loan" in the funding records. Moreover, when he communicated with our members responsible for financing, he specifically emphasized that once the subsequent financing funds arrived, he would be repaid first for his loan of 1.6 million RMB.

Between 2022 and 2023, 3WW3, as the main entity, received a total of 1.42 million USD in financing funds, which is the actual amount received. This money mainly came from individual investors. Known investors include Dashan from Waterdrop Capital, and the vast majority of the funds came from individual investors. After July 11, we officially separated from Old Wang. After that, Zhang Chi personally took on all debts and communicated with all investors one by one, signing an agreement that clearly stated Zhang Chi would bear all responsibilities for the funds invested by investors.

Colin: Whether it’s Yescoin or 3WW3, does this project have an equity structure? Or is there a formal company entity? Are there any relevant legal documents?

Eric et al.: The reason we have such intense disputes is that from the beginning, this project never established a formal entity structure. Only when Brother Chi realized the necessity of this matter did it start to trigger various contradictions and disputes.

When we initially joined the project, it may have been out of pure or naive ideas, and everyone cooperated based on verbal commitments. Everyone was told they were "partners," but specific equity arrangements and legal agreements were never implemented. The initial idea was to get things done first and discuss these issues once there were results. However, after the project was completed, Old Wang began to talk about "splitting up" or simply screening out certain people, excluding core members. In other words, after the project truly developed, he attempted to unilaterally control everything.

Colin: So, all cooperation agreements and financing contracts were ultimately signed with Old Wang's company, right?

Eric et al.: We actually do not know specifically who he signed with. We really do not know this issue because many things he operated himself, and the specific details of the contracts were never disclosed to us.

Colin: How could there be investment without formal contracts? Whether it’s institutional investment or individual investment, such levels of capital flow must be supported by contracts.

Eric et al.: We indeed do not know the specific investment contract situation. You can understand it this way—Old Wang wanted to control everything related to "receiving money," while all "working" matters were executed by us.

Colin: So, during this long period, did you not ask him to provide everyone with a formal equity distribution plan?

Old Tang: This request has certainly been made.

Colin: Or when did you formally raise clear equity demands?

Old Tang: In June, we formally made demands to him. But before that, since the project had not yet generated actual profits, everyone did not overly calculate these matters, and the team was still relatively united.

Colin: Because there were no actual interests involved, right? So everyone did not have too many disputes at that time.

Old Tang: Yes, the problem is that in May, the project began to show some good results, and we formally started discussing equity distribution and dividends. But even so, we never made excessive demands; we just tried to communicate and hoped to reach a reasonable plan. Moreover, we had already talked to him three times, but each time his attitude was very perfunctory, constantly making promises that "in a few months" he would solve the problem. I have recordings here to prove his statements.

However, when the time he promised arrived, not only did he not fulfill his promise, but he also began to look for a new team, trying to transfer the project's resources and funds to them, telling our original team to "find jobs on their own." Because of this, on July 11, all members unanimously agreed to remove Old Wang from the management team while still retaining his corresponding rights.

I personally believe that our handling of this matter was not excessive at all. Old Wang is not suitable to lead this team and cannot provide real value to the project in management. His behavior has severely harmed the interests of the team. Therefore, on July 11, all members of 3WW3 unanimously agreed to remove him.

Colin: Now there are still two questions. The first is that Old Wang questions that you have actually made a lot of money through this Bot's traffic, is this true?

Eric: Yes, objectively speaking, the peak traffic of the project was from May to November last year, during which the entire Telegram ecosystem was at its hottest, and everyone knows this. During this period, all commercial activities, commercial decisions, including our traffic transactions with partners, we estimate the total income to be around 2 to 3 million USD. But all of this business income was controlled by Old Wang personally and did not come to us.

Since we officially took over the project on November 7, the business income from November, December, to January this year mainly came from exchange and slow volume models. Even if there was income, we reinvested most of the funds back into project development.

Colin: How much total income did you obtain during this period? And how about cost consumption?

Eric: Total income was about 400,000 to 500,000 USD.

Colin: Understood. Another question is about issuing tokens, right? You actually missed a great opportunity to issue tokens. Is the current situation difficult mainly because of this internal struggle?

Old Tang: From my perspective, the main reason is a decision-making error. The best market opportunity was in May when everyone was pushing the project hard, and the real internal contradictions only erupted after July 11.

Colin: I see, so after July 11, your Hangzhou team took over the project, while Old Wang might have been trying various methods, whether it was filing a case, reporting to the police, or suing, etc., right?

Old Tang: No. He sacrificed the opportunity to issue tokens and deliberately set up various company entities, even claiming to own intellectual property. In fact, his purpose was to target us, not to consider the project or users. He has never truly cared about the development of the project or understood the actual needs of users. He might not even know the basic profile of the users, let alone truly interact with and understand them. We have always been communicating with users on the front lines, analyzing their needs, and knowing how to attract them.

Colin: But from a legal and equity perspective, your questions may not hold much significance. For example, if Musk invests in a company and he is the major shareholder, no matter how hard the employees work, the company ultimately still belongs to Musk.

Old Tang: Yes, but the situation here is different. The employees Musk invested in have formal contracts, while we have not received salaries since the first day of the project started, but participated as partners. It’s just that in actual operations, we bear more responsibility, and everyone's division of labor is different.

From the beginning, we did not define team members based on traditional employment relationships but rather as partners pushing the project forward together.

Colin: So, from the time you officially took over the project to the recent outbreak of this incident, have similar situations occurred many times? Or has it been relatively stable overall?

Old Tang: There have been many occurrences. This is also a point I want to emphasize. For example, the communication software we used in the past was Lark, but later the management permissions of Lark were inexplicably taken away by some "mysterious force."

Not only did they take away the Lark permissions, but we even received email notifications showing that our email login permissions were modified. This meant they could log into the system using our accounts and even post information. Therefore, many messages were taken out of context or tampered with, and we also lost some historical records, making it impossible to verify some key details. At that time, we realized that the team had been artificially divided, and some core resources had been artificially cut off.

Colin: Understood, such things are actually quite normal. Regarding the so-called equity and control, Old Wang may constantly file complaints, including using various legal means to try to regain control. The struggle for permissions of tools like Lark is also a relatively common situation in such disputes.

Old Tang: Yes, we have always focused solely on the project itself, while he has been secretly doing small tricks behind the scenes, trying to target us. Moreover, I feel that he may have started planning all this more than half a year ago.

Colin: Understood, so what is your current response plan to this situation? Have you communicated with lawyers and the police?

Old Tang: Yes, we have taken legal measures to respond.

Colin: And now the main permissions of the project have been taken away by him, right?

Old Tang: It’s not entirely like that. The entity is still with us; this is essentially a civil dispute. But the problem is, for some unknown reason, this matter has been escalated to a criminal case by "some force." This is the most puzzling part.

Colin: I mean, have the Bot management permissions and Telegram channel permissions been taken away by him?

Old Tang: We still retain some Bot permissions and channel permissions, but now there is a "hard fork" situation.

Colin: OK, I heard that in February, Eric said Old Wang somehow used his connections with the TON Foundation to transfer the main channel's permissions away?

Eric: Yes, that’s right; the main channel's permissions were transferred by him.

Old Tang: However, after he took the main channel, we also established new traffic channels and retained new Bot permissions.

Colin: So now are users staying in the original channel or have they moved to the new channel?

Old Tang: Both sides have users, so there are now two versions of the Yescoin community, one real and one fake.

Colin: So, this matter seems complex, but essentially it is not that complicated. Ultimately, it is because you did not have a clear contract and equity structure at the beginning of your startup that led to these disputes later. In the end, everyone holds their own opinions and has their own positions.

Old Tang: Yes, and the most bizarre thing is that this should have been an ordinary equity dispute, but somehow it was forcibly escalated to a criminal case. Moreover, this project has been developing in Hangzhou from 0 to 1 for nearly two years under 3WW3, but now it has been transferred to Shanghai, which is really incomprehensible.

Colin: In fact, this situation is quite common in the Web3 industry, such as Binance. When Binance first started, it gave many advisors and investors tokens, but later when the company grew, Binance did not recognize those early commitments. Because when a company grows into a hundred billion-level enterprise, those early tens of millions of dollars in investment or commitments, they may not be willing to fulfill anymore.

Old Tang: It may be like that in business, but we still believe that there should be some idealism in the Web3 industry. Decentralized organizations should be a group of like-minded people pushing together, rather than letting capital control everything. This is also where we were initially more naive. Looking back now, perhaps this is "bad money drives out good," and idealistic young people ultimately can only suffer losses.

Colin: You can't say that idealism represents everything. Indeed, such matters are difficult to conclude, and it is hard to clarify who is right and who is wrong. But from your experiences, this also serves as a warning to other entrepreneurs—entrepreneurs in the Web3 field need to have legal awareness, equity awareness, and contract awareness; otherwise, when the project grows, similar problems are likely to arise.

Old Tang: Yes, this is also part of our reflection.

Colin: So, that is to say, all members of the Hangzhou team did not sign any contracts throughout the process, nor did they participate in any company's equity structure?

Eric: Yes, that is indeed the case.

Old Tang: It was only after the project was transferred to Shanghai that they began to supplement these structures, and the people added were basically members of Old Wang's original team. He initially introduced his team to us, saying they were outsourced personnel, but later he took his outsourcing team to Shanghai and found a new batch of outsourcing teams there. At that time, he told us this was just a temporary adjustment and that they would return to Hangzhou; we also have relevant video records from that time.

During that stage, we were still discussing incentive plans, and there was still some trust between us. Zhang Chi was leading us to push this matter forward. But by July, we clearly reached an agreement that all permissions would be handled by Zhang Chi, acting as an agent to negotiate the final incentive plan. Until November, the incentive plan had not been finalized, and as a result, Old Wang's side directly isolated us completely. To protect our rights, we could only keep control of the project's core accounts in our hands to ensure that our work results would not be encroached upon.

Colin: Why ultimately was there no compromise? After all, it has come to this point, which is actually a lose-lose or multi-lose situation for everyone.

Old Tang: The specific reasons may only be known to Old Wang and Zhang Chi. They communicated many times but never reached an agreement. Of course, I can only represent my personal stance to evaluate Old Wang; I think he is very good at performing. Zhang Chi communicated with him more, and Zhang Chi's feedback was that Old Wang was very selfish and greedy. For example, in their negotiations, Old Wang once demanded that the team give up almost 80% of the profits, and such a distribution plan would not leave the team with a reasonable profit space. To put it bluntly, it was worse than working for someone else.

Old Wang, one of the founders of Yescoin, responds in an interview:

I should have first met Zhang Chi around July or August 2022. At that time, I had the idea of creating a community similar to a DAO.

Zhang Chi's early core direction was mainly in an HR role, helping to see if there were suitable partners to introduce to the community and establish connections. Zhang Chi had previously done community work and knew many people, so in this process, his role leaned more towards community operations, helping to recommend suitable talents.

The community initially did not involve the market, products, or business; it merely produced some content, such as articles for public accounts. Throughout 2023, the industry was still in a bear market, and by the end of 2023, the Bitcoin ecosystem began to warm up, and the community atmosphere changed accordingly. At this time, the community's traffic began to increase; although people came and went, some fixed partners stayed and were willing to try to conduct some business activities based on the community.

At that time, my personal commitment was that I could cover all expenses for meals and accommodation. If anyone had product ideas, I could also provide early support.

By 2024, the market began to recover, and everyone had their own ideas about trading coins or other aspects. In this process, early team members gradually began to do their own things.

However, at the same time, some value differences began to emerge within the community, which was harmful to the community. The community itself is not a company; it does not have a strict management mechanism and cannot arbitrarily expel members, so I could only maintain some balance within it.

As more and more people joined, the community began to develop towards decentralization, gradually forming small groups and factions, with everyone building their own projects. During the same period, multiple different projects could be seen simultaneously within the community.

In the initial stage, the funding support for these projects mainly relied on the community reimbursement mechanism. Later, some projects also began to receive independent investments. However, it was not easy to incubate projects within the community; the decentralized management model made overall planning difficult, leading to decreased efficiency.

In the later stages, the community's reimbursement costs became increasingly high. I remember that at the peak, the reimbursement amount could reach several hundred thousand RMB per month.

In this process, it was inevitable that there would be phenomena of "not worrying about scarcity but worrying about inequality," and even "bad money driving out good money." Because some people controlled the community's funding expenditure permissions, while others controlled the project's resources, internal contradictions inevitably arose.

In the later development of the Yescoin community, everyone was doing their own things. However, the specific project Yescoin was initiated by me along with a partner I had collaborated with for 9 years and an external partner. Around mid-February 2024, my partner and I began to discuss this direction, and around February 28, we finalized the project name.

From March to May, Yescoin grew rapidly. But there was a key point in time—the progress of financing. The financing progress may not have been that fast, while I was pushing product, operations, and facilitating cooperation on the front lines. From all work records, these matters were mainly led by me.

Secondly, as the community's influence continued to expand, the project experienced exponential growth, leading to extreme funding shortages. The team needed to expand, but the initial core member count was insufficient, so we were in a crazy hiring state at that time. However, in this process, due to rapid growth, some personnel's permission management became relatively loose, thus laying hidden dangers for subsequent problems.

In the Asia-Africa-Latin America Research Institute part, my personal expenditure exceeded 4 million RMB. Yescoin spent a total of over 1 million USD. I prefer to give money directly, but regarding account management, there was indeed some negligence. So initially, Eric held part of the account, a certain developer held part of the account, and another developer from our company also held part of the account.

Then, around May or June, during this process, they began to continuously adjust permission configurations, gradually centralizing account management in the Hangzhou team. And to put it bluntly, it was because Notcoin went live that the community atmosphere began to become strange. Because previously, no one would actively come to Yescoin, but at that time, the project's attention increased, and everyone began to scramble for resources and raise issues.

After July, they should have gone through several "rehearsals" and then directly announced that the accounts belonged to them. At that time, I happened to be on a business trip, and they took advantage of this time to cut off all permissions. This incident happened very suddenly; I was completely unprepared. When I returned, I found that all control of the accounts was no longer in my hands, and I was very passive, only able to find ways to solve the problem. The information gap between both sides also caused contradictions. On one hand, the Hangzhou team kept saying there was not enough money, while on the other hand, from my work records, they had long been using account permissions to secretly divert traffic and transfer resources out. Simply put, the accounts were indeed in the hands of employees in the early stages, but later, the Hangzhou team gradually took control of the permissions through various means.

A member of the Shanghai team had permissions at that time. However, when he arrived at the Hangzhou community, he was influenced and could be said to have been brainwashed. The Hangzhou team emphasized concepts like "decentralization" and "freedom," as well as some interest demands, and he was influenced by these ideas and handed over the permissions to the Hangzhou team.

In fact, the most critical permissions at that time were the Bot accounts, which were originally designed and managed by the Shanghai team. Later, the Hangzhou team gradually expanded their permissions based on this, began to take over more project resources, and opened new channels. From the overall situation, some members of the Shanghai team were indeed influenced, and later we found a complete series of evidence that could prove how permissions were gradually transferred.

I have financing terms, business contracts, and a series of related documents. All the corresponding rights proofs of the company, including my personal investment records, are in these materials. I am fully aware of my rights.

Theoretically, there may indeed be some options or equity among the early team members. But the problem is that this matter had not been formally negotiated at that time, and Zhang Chi had not formally entered the shareholder structure, so this matter could not even be discussed. At that time, Zhang Chi and they were not on the shareholder list at all. Eric was actually only responsible for community operations in the early stages, and another person was responsible for design. Therefore, I could not sign equity agreements with everyone when they joined, as this would only amplify contradictions. Our original intention was for two or four people to make core decisions, but in reality, the team had already developed to more than ten people, making the situation even more complex.

To be honest, everyone was very excited to be working on this project, and I also felt that this matter could develop sustainably in the long term. Therefore, during this process, I always hoped to make it operate more sustainably. However, by July, some people had already been secretly selling traffic and collaborating privately with external forces. When they realized that things might not hold up, they took advantage of this time to completely seize the account permissions.

At that time, Zhang Chi stood up to negotiate with me, but he had more information than I did, and he used some internal issues to negotiate with me. In reality, I was negotiating equity distribution and salary structure with the team, but in the end, it turned into them wanting to take the entire project away.