From the "Yescoin founder" dispute, let's talk about the compliance issues of Web3 startups

In the past two days, the dispute between "Yescoin founder" Zhang and Wang has attracted a lot of attention, from a commercial dispute to a criminal case, some people feel that this is a "mysterious force", and some people think that it is the result that Zhang, who has become a criminal suspect, deserves; As a web3 criminal lawyer, under the premise of not being entrusted by the client, lawyer Liu cannot see the file materials of Zhang's suspected crime of illegally obtaining computer information system data, and can only talk about the compliance issues that Web3 entrepreneurs should pay attention to from his own understanding of web3 entrepreneurs and the criminal cases that he has personally handled.

! Let's talk about the compliance issues of Web3 startups from the "Yescoin founder" dispute

I. Case Background**

According to the information currently disclosed by platforms such as "Wu Shuo" and Odaily news, we can roughly understand that the Yescoin platform was arrested by the police in Hangzhou on February 12, 2025 due to a commercial dispute between partners between Wang and Zhang (i.e., Zhang Chi in the aforementioned screenshot announcement), on suspicion of "Illegal acquisition of computer information system data", of course, Wang did not recognize Zhang's identity as a partner.

On February 13, Zhang was taken to Shanghai by the police. The expression "sent to Shanghai for trial on February 13" is slightly flawed, and it is impossible for a person to be tried immediately after being arrested in a criminal case, but at least after being investigated by the public security organs and examined and prosecuted by the procuratorate, the court will conduct a trial, and the general criminal case cycle will be at least six months before entering the court trial stage. Moreover, according to lawyer Liu's experience, it should have been the Shanghai public security who went to Hangzhou to carry out the arrest, but the local public security in Hangzhou would cooperate according to the law, and eventually the suspect was brought back to Shanghai by the Shanghai public security.

According to Wu's "Interview with Yescoin Teams on Both Sides: Unclear Equity Leads to Evil Consequences and Vicious Struggle for Control" and "In-depth Investigation into the Arrest of the "Yescoin Founder": Infighting for Power, Hard Fork and Idealism" on the Odaily platform, Zhang's team always believes that his position or role is at the partner level, but Wang believes that Zhang is not a project partner, but he uses the community resources in his possession to constantly ask for too high a price. The Hangzhou team led by Zhang removed the data account permissions of Lao Wang, the owner of the software, in November 2024, which may lead to the incident.

II. What is the crime of "illegally obtaining computer information system data"? **

According to Odaily's information, Zhang is currently suspected of "illegally obtaining computer information system data".

The second paragraph of Article 285 of the Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China stipulates that this crime mainly regulates "violating state regulations by invading computer information systems other than those provided for in the preceding paragraph (i.e., invading into computer information systems other than those provided for in the preceding paragraph) or using other technical means to obtain data stored, processed, or transmitted in the computer information system, or illegally controlling the computer information system", where the circumstances are serious.

There are two levels of this crime: if the circumstances are serious, they may be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or short-term detention, and/or a fine; where the circumstances are especially serious, they may be sentenced to between three and seven years imprisonment and a concurrent fine.

What are the standards for these two gears? According to the current judicial interpretation, the criteria for "serious circumstances" are:

(1) Obtaining 10 or more sets of identity authentication information for online financial services such as payment and settlement, securities trading, or futures trading;

(2) Obtaining 500 or more sets of identity verification information other than those in item (1);

(3) Unlawful gains of 5,000 RMB or more, or economic losses of 10,000 RMB or more;

(4) Other situations where the circumstances are serious

The criterion for "particularly aggravating circumstances" is: conduct or consequences that are more than five times the above criteria.

It is not yet known which provision Zhang was filed for violating the case, but judging from my practical experience, item (3) is more likely.

! Let's talk about the compliance issues of Web3 startups from the "Yescoin founder" dispute

3. Suggestions for Web3 Entrepreneurship Compliance

Aside from the disputes between Zhang and Wang on the Yescoin platform, we have seen too many criminal cases of partnership disputes from "brothers to enemies" in practice, and the main reason is very consistent with the Yescoin platform, that is, there is no prior equity arrangement between partners, shareholders, core employees and even ordinary employees. Maybe it's okay in the early days of entrepreneurship, everyone can fight together with brotherhood, but once there is a profit, especially a considerable profit, it is inevitable that people's hearts will start to fluctuate, and they want to share a little more.

In fact, we have seen that the common cases of shareholders "treating each other with punishment" are "embezzlement of duty" and "tax-related crimes", which are definitely the most commonly used weapons in business wars. Nowadays, the number of web3 enterprises is increasing, and some computer-related crimes have also begun to appear in shareholder disputes, which can be regarded as a new discovery of web3 criminal risks.

Therefore, young web3 entrepreneurs must pay attention to compliance in advance, and no legal documents should be missed, and they cannot only be downloaded on Baidu or Google, and it is best to be drafted or reviewed by a professional lawyer, so as to eliminate commercial and criminal legal risks before and when starting a business.

As a web3 lawyer, we strongly recommend that all entrepreneurs have their own consultant lawyers, especially web3 lawyers who know how to defend themselves, which is not only as a lawyer who wants to "sell himself" to get lawyer fees, but also because we have witnessed too many legal risks in reality, and even many criminal legal risks can be completely avoided in the early stage, and even a win-win situation can occur, but because there is no reliable lawyer to participate and intervene, In the end, it is regrettable that all parties allowed the situation to deteriorate into a lose-lose situation.