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.

In a lengthy statement published by partner Wang Mouxin mentioned in Yescoin's official Twitter, he stated that Zhang Chi has no actual investment relationship with either 3WW3 or any other project; from the start of the Yescoin project in February until 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-ins, preparing for an illegal seizure of online income.

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

Wang Mouxin's Full Defense:

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

Yescoin Zhang Chi's Hangzhou Team Responds in an 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 members involved. From the entire stage of going from 0 to 1, the only information I received about this project was its name—Yescoin. All subsequent visual elements, including color selection, style setting (such as pixel art), 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 "someone" who completed this entire setup. I can provide all design output process records to prove this. Additionally, this project was initially incubated by 3WW3, and I was also an early member of 3WW3.

First, let's talk about project execution. From a 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 external manpower he directly recruited. 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 it was these 7 people who 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 said that it was the members of 3WW3 who completed it together. At that time, there was no clear concept of a company entity; everyone was pushing the project forward based on their contributions and abilities.

Now, let's talk about funding issues. If you ask who provided the money, I can clearly tell you that the funding mainly came from 3WW3, as this involves two aspects. First, General Tang, I, and other members of 3WW3 (including Zhang Chi) participated in the project as a form of investment in "human capital" when we joined. 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, all the money from start to finish was provided by 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 into it. Although some living expenses were reimbursed, many business expenses were sometimes not calculated, and we just spent what needed to be spent. Of course, compared to the larger funding amounts, these amounts are not significant. Eric spent about 400,000 in total; if needed, we can discuss whether we can present these records.

Colin: How much do you think Old Wang actually contributed? Including the Asia-Africa 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 made funding contributions, he specifically noted "loan" in the funding records. Moreover, when communicating with the members responsible for financing, he 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, as the main entity, 3WW3 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 assumed 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 the investors.

Colin: Whether it is 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 had such intense disputes is that from the very beginning, this project never established a formal entity structure. Only Brother Chi realized the necessity of this matter, which began to trigger various conflicts 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 who he specifically 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 a formal contract? Whether it is 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 involving "receiving money," while all "working" matters were executed by us.

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

Old Tang: Of course, this request has 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 generated actual profits, everyone did not overly calculate these matters, and the team was relatively united.

Colin: Because there were no actual interests involved, right? So everyone did not have 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 did not make excessive demands; we just tried to communicate and hoped to reach a reasonable plan. Moreover, we had talked to him three times, but each time his attitude was very perfunctory, constantly making promises that "in a few months" the problem would be resolved. I have recordings 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 our 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 actions have 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 whether you have actually made a lot of money through this Bot's traffic, is that 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 and decisions, including our traffic transactions with partners, we estimate the total income to be around 2 to 3 million USD. However, all this business income was controlled by Old Wang personally and was not with us.

Since we officially took over the project on November 7, the business income during the three months of November, December, and January 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 receive 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. Has the situation become difficult mainly because of this internal struggle?

Old Tang: From my perspective, the main reason is decision-making errors. The best market opportunity was in May when everyone was pushing the project hard, and the real internal conflicts 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, calling the police, or suing, etc., right?

Old Tang: No. He sacrificed the opportunity to issue tokens and then deliberately set up various company entities, even claiming to own intellectual property, but his real purpose was to target us, not to consider the project or users. He has never truly cared about the project's development and has never sought to understand the actual needs of users. He may not even know the basic profile of the users, let alone truly engage and understand them. It has always been us communicating with users on the front lines, analyzing their needs, and knowing how to attract them.

Colin: But from a legal and equity perspective, the questions you raised 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: Right, but the situation here is different. The employees Musk invested in have formal contracts, while we have not received salaries since the project started; we participated as partners. It’s just that in actual operations, we bear greater responsibilities, and everyone has different roles.

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

Colin: So, since you officially took over the project until the recent incident erupted, 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, and later the management permissions for 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 means they could log into the system using our accounts and even post information. As a result, much information was taken out of context or altered, and we 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 deliberately cut off.

Colin: Understood, such things are actually quite normal. Regarding the so-called equity and control, Old Wang may continuously file complaints, including using various legal means to try to regain control. The struggle for permissions on 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 scheming behind the scenes, trying to target us. Moreover, I think he may have started planning all of this more than six months ago.

Colin: I see, 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: Not entirely. The main 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." That is the most puzzling part.

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

Old Tang: We still hold part of the Bot permissions and channel permissions; it’s just that there is now 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 permissions of the main channel?

Eric: Yes, that’s correct; the permissions of the main channel 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 are users still on 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’s not that complicated. Ultimately, it’s because you did not have clear contracts and equity structures when you initially started the business that led to these disputes later on. In the end, everyone has their own words and positions.

Old Tang: Yes, and the most bizarre thing is that this should have been an ordinary equity dispute, yet it has somehow been forcibly escalated to a criminal case through unknown means. 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 truly incomprehensible.

Colin: In fact, this situation is quite common in the Web3 industry, such as with Binance. When Binance first started, they gave many advisors and investors tokens, but later when the company grew, Binance no longer recognized those early commitments. Because when a company grows into a hundred billion-level enterprise, those early tens of millions of dollars in investments or commitments may not be something they are 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 driven by a group of like-minded people, not controlled by capital. This is also where we were relatively naive at the beginning. Looking back now, perhaps this is "bad money driving out good," where idealistic young people ultimately suffer losses.

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

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

Colin: So, does that mean that none of the members of the Hangzhou team signed any contracts throughout the process, nor were they involved in any company's equity structure?

Eric: Yes, that is indeed the case.

Old Tang: It wasn’t until 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 also told us this was just a temporary adjustment and that they would return to Hangzhou later; we also have relevant video records from that time.

During that phase, we were still discussing incentive plans, and there was still a certain level of trust among us. Zhang Chi was leading the effort to help us push this matter forward. But by July, we had 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 completely isolated us. To protect our rights, we could only take control of the project's core accounts to ensure that our work results would not be infringed upon.

Colin: Why was there ultimately no compromise? After all, the situation has escalated 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 evaluate Old Wang from a personal standpoint; I think he is very good at performing. Zhang Chi had more communication with him, 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 cede almost 80% of the profits, which would leave no reasonable profit space for the team; frankly speaking, it was worse than working for someone else.

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

I first met Zhang Chi around July or August of 2022. At that time, I had the idea of creating a community in a DAO-like format.

Zhang Chi's early core role was mainly HR-oriented, 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.

Initially, the community did not involve marketing, products, or business; it merely produced some content, such as articles for public accounts. Throughout 2023, the industry was still in a bear market, but 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 would cover all expenses for food 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. During this process, early team members gradually began to pursue their own projects.

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 a certain 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 stages, the funding support for these projects mainly relied on the community reimbursement mechanism. Later, some projects began to receive independent investments. However, incubating projects within the community was not easy; the decentralized management model made overall planning difficult, leading to reduced efficiency.

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

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

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

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

Secondly, as the community's influence expanded and the project grew exponentially, funding became extremely tight. The team needed to expand, but the initial core member count was insufficient, so we were in a frenzied hiring state. However, during this process, due to rapid growth, the management of some personnel permissions became relatively lax, laying the groundwork for subsequent issues.

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

Then, around May or June, during this process, they began to continuously adjust the 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 seek out Yescoin, but at that time, the project's attention increased, and everyone began to scramble for resources and raise issues.

After July, they must 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 moment to cut off all the permissions. This incident happened very suddenly; I was completely unprepared. When I returned, I found that all control over the accounts was no longer in my hands. I was in a very passive position and could only find a way to solve the problem. The information gap between both sides also caused conflicts. On one hand, the Hangzhou team kept saying there wasn't enough money, while on the other hand, from my work records, it was clear that they had been secretly diverting traffic and transferring resources using account permissions. Simply put, the accounts were indeed in the hands of the employees in the early stages, but later, the Hangzhou team gradually took complete 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 it could be said that he was brainwashed. The Hangzhou team emphasized concepts like "decentralization" and "freedom," along with some interest demands, and he was influenced by these ideas, leading him to hand 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 and began to take over more project resources, also launching new channels. Overall, some members of the Shanghai team were indeed influenced, and later we discovered a complete series of evidence that could prove how the permissions were gradually transferred.

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

Theoretically, among the early team members, there might have been some options or equity. But the problem is that this matter had not been formally negotiated at that time, and Zhang Chi had not officially entered the shareholder structure, so this was completely out of the question. At that time, Zhang Chi and his team were not on the shareholder list at all. Eric was initially only responsible for community operations, and there was another person responsible for design. Therefore, I couldn't have everyone sign equity agreements upon joining, as that would only amplify conflicts. Our original intention was for two or four people to make core decisions, but in reality, the team had already grown to over a dozen people, making the situation even more complex.

To be honest, everyone was very excited about working on this project, and I also believed it could develop sustainably in the long term. So throughout this process, I always hoped to make it operate more sustainably. However, by July, some people were secretly selling traffic and collaborating privately with external forces. When they realized that things might not hold up, they took advantage of that moment 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. He used some internal issues within the team to negotiate with me. In reality, I was discussing equity distribution and salary structures with the team, but in the end, it turned into them wanting to take the entire project away.

免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。