Who understands this! The old gossip in the crypto circle has suddenly been dug up again, as former CEO of Thunder Chen Lei brings 'black materials' back into the spotlight—suspected of misappropriating huge sums of company money for illegal speculation, and has long since slipped overseas to enjoy himself, leaving behind a group of old investors who are left in tears over the former Wan Ke Yun hardware. This operation directly pulls us back to the crazy winter of 2017, today we will thoroughly analyze this classic scene of 'hardware speculation + executive scandal', filled with valuable insights and lessons learned!
First, let’s give the new investors a little lesson, while the old players can relate directly. Back in the day, Wan Ke Yun was not just an ordinary digital product; it was known as 'the first stepping stone for Web2 users to enter the crypto circle'. How popular was it? It was ten times more spectacular than the later FIL! After all, at that time, the Web2 traffic dividend was booming, and Thunder packaged this hardware, which cost a few hundred bucks, as 'the ultimate tool for public speculation'—buy a unit to take home, plug in the internet cable and hard drive, contribute bandwidth and storage every day, and you can earn 'Chainke' rewards, perfectly replicating the closed loop of 'buying devices - earning rewards - cashing out'.
Here we must emphasize the point to avoid pitfalls: this LinkToken is by no means Litecoin (LTC). Back then, how many novices mixed the two up, only to realize after following the trend that they were fundamentally different. In terms of speculation heat, LinkToken was much crazier than Litecoin—initially costing a few cents each, it was driven up to over ten yuan, multiplying several hundred times; even the WanKeYun hardware rose in price, with machines that originally cost over three hundred directly trading for thousands in the second-hand market, with premiums comparable to luxury goods. At that time, whoever had a few WanKeYun devices could walk around freely in the circle; early entrants indeed made a fortune, but behind it all was an illusion built on a bubble.
As an analyst who experienced that crazy period, I asserted at the time that this wouldn't last long. On the surface, it was an innovation of 'sharing economy + blockchain technology', but in essence, it was a disguised financing that skirted regulations. In September 2017, seven ministries had already halted various token financing activities, but Xunlei insisted on changing its disguise to continue playing, attempting to confuse the issue by renaming 'WanKeCoin' to 'LinkToken', and through investment promotion conferences and trading tutorials, it indirectly boosted speculation, pulling a large number of ordinary users who didn't understand the technology into the game. Such operations that go against the wind were just a matter of time before being targeted by regulators.
As expected, in early 2018, the China Internet Finance Association directly named LinkToken, clearly stating that its 'obligation to replace legal currency payments is essentially disguised financing.' Xunlei's stock price plummeted nearly 30% that day, diving from a peak of 27 dollars. Subsequently, Xunlei was forced to shut down the user transfer function of LinkToken, completely extinguishing secondary market speculation. Those who hoarded mining machines at high prices and bought LinkToken at inflated prices were instantly trapped, with hundreds of yuan worth of hardware turning into electronic waste, and the price of LinkToken also fell back to its original state, making it a 'textbook-level example of exploiting retail investors.'
And this time Chen Lei's explosion has torn open an even bigger hole in the chaos of that year. According to reports, during his tenure, Chen Lei not only led the hype around LinkToken but also controlled 'shadow companies' to extract nearly 200 million yuan from Xunlei through fictitious contracts and inflated transactions, part of which was used for illegal speculation activities. More dramatically, after the incident broke out in 2020, he fled overseas overnight and has been at large ever since, leaving Xunlei to spend five years chasing debts, but progress has been slow due to difficulties in cross-border evidence collection and limited law enforcement authority. This operation also confirms my viewpoint: any project that deviates from compliance and relies on hype to reap profits often hides deeper interests behind it.
Looking back at this incident, the rise and fall of WanKeYun is actually a microcosm of the chaos in the early crypto circle—concept packaging outweighs technological implementation, and capital speculation overrides compliance, with the ones who always get hurt being ordinary investors who follow the trend. Although the crypto market is becoming increasingly regulated, similar 'pseudo-innovation' projects continue to emerge, either relying on hardware to exploit users or using stories to pump prices. Remember one thing: any speculative opportunity with an extremely low threshold that claims 'guaranteed profits' is essentially a scythe sharpening its blade.
Did you ever follow the trend to buy WanKeYun back then? Or did you fall into similar 'pseudo-crypto project' traps? Share your painful history in the comments section, and follow me@加密崎哥 #加密市场观察 $BTC
