From the "Yescoin Founder" dispute, talk about the compliance issues of Web3 entrepreneurship

The dispute between Zhang and Wang, the "founder of Yescoin" in the past two days, has attracted a lot of attention, from commercial disputes to criminal cases. Some people lament that this is the cause of "mysterious power", and some people believe that it is the result that Zhang, who has become a suspect, deserves; as a web3 criminal lawyer, without being entrusted by the parties, Lawyer Liu cannot see the file materials of Zhang's suspected of illegally obtaining computer information system data. He can only talk about the compliance issues that web3 entrepreneurship should pay attention to from his own understanding of web3 entrepreneurs and has handled personally.

1. Case background

According to the information currently disclosed by platforms such as "Wu Shuo" and Odaily News, we can roughly understand the Ton Eco Game Yescoin platform due to a business dispute between Wang and Zhang (i.e. Zhang Chi in the aforementioned screenshot announcement), Zhang was arrested by the police in Hangzhou on February 12, 2025. He was suspected of " illegal acquisition of computer information system data ". Of course, Wang's party does not recognize Zhang's partner identity.

On February 13, Zhang was taken to Shanghai by the police. The article posted by odaily said that the statement "was sent to Shanghai for trial on February 13" is slightly flawed. It is impossible for a criminal case to be arrested and tried immediately. Instead, at least after investigation by the public security organs and prosecutors, the court will conduct the trial. The general criminal case cycle can only enter the court trial stage for at least six months. Moreover, according to Lawyer Liu's experience, it should be the arrest act that the Shanghai police went to Hangzhou to carry out, but the local police in Hangzhou will cooperate according to the law. In the end, the suspect was taken back to Shanghai by the Shanghai police. If Zhang cannot be released on bail, he should be detained in a detention center in a district in Shanghai.

According to Wu Shuo's "Exclusive Interview with Yescoin Teams: Unclear Equity Caused Evil Fighting Related to Control" and Odaily Platform's "In-depth Investigation on the Arrest of "Yescoin Founder": Internal Fighting, Hard Fork and Idealism", one of Zhang's team always believes that his positioning or role is the partner level, but Wang believes that Zhang is not a project partner, but he uses the community resources he has mastered to constantly seek excessive prices. After the negotiations between the two parties failed, the Hangzhou team led by Zhang removed the data account permissions of Lao Wang, the person who belongs to the software, in November 2024, which may cause the case.

2. **What is the crime of "illegal acquisition of computer information

system data"?**

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

This crime is stipulated in Article 285, Paragraph 2 of the Criminal Law of my country. It mainly regulates serious behaviors such as "violating national regulations, invading computer information systems other than the provisions of the preceding paragraph (i.e. invading state affairs, national defense construction, and cutting-edge science and technology) or using other technical means to obtain data stored, processed or transmitted in the computer information system, or implementing illegal control of the computer information system."

There are two crimes in total: if the circumstances are serious, they may be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or detention, and shall be fined alone; if the circumstances are particularly serious, they may be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years but not more than seven years, and shall be fined alone.

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

(1) Obtain more than ten sets of identity authentication information for online financial services such as payment settlement, securities trading, and futures trading;

(2) Obtain more than 500 groups of identity authentication information other than item (1);

(3) Illegal income of more than 5,000 yuan or economic losses of more than 10,000 yuan;

(IV) Other serious circumstances

The criteria for "particularly serious circumstances" are: more than five times the above criteria for behavior or consequences.

It is not known which provision was filed for violating the case, but based on my practical experience, the possibility of item (3) is relatively high.

3. Some suggestions on web3 entrepreneurship compliance

Aside from the dispute between Zhang and Wang on Yescoin platform, we have seen too many criminal cases of partnership disputes from "brothers turn into enemies" in practice. 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 stage of starting a business, so everyone can make a fortune by relying on brotherhood, but once there is a profit, especially a considerable profit, people will inevitably start to fluctuate and they all want to share more.

In fact, we see common cases of shareholders "treat with punishment" are "official embezzlement" and "tax-related crimes", which are definitely the most commonly used weapon in business wars. Although relevant departments have always emphasized that criminal means cannot be used to interfere in civil and commercial disputes, the reality is so realistic. Nowadays, the number of web3 companies is increasing, and some computer crimes have begun to appear in shareholder disputes, which is also a new discovery of web3 criminal risks.

Therefore, young web3 entrepreneurs must pay attention to pre-compliance. No legal documents that should be leaked and cannot be downloaded only on Baidu or Google. It is best to be drafted or reviewed by professional lawyers, so as to eliminate commercial and criminal legal risks before and when starting a business.

As web3 lawyers, we strongly recommend that all entrepreneurs have their own consulting lawyers, especially web3 lawyers who know how to defend criminal defense. This is not only because as lawyers, I want to "sell myself" to get lawyer fees, but mainly because we have witnessed too many legal risks in reality, and even many criminal legal risks can be completely avoided in the early stages of occurrence, and even a win-win situation can occur. However, because there is no reliable lawyer's participation and intervention, it is inevitable that all parties will let the situation deteriorate to a loss-making situation, which is a pity.