Due to the arrest of the CEO, the operations of Multichain have stopped

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The CEO of the blockchain technology company Zhajun closed his job after a series of riots following the events that led to his arrest on May 21, 2023. Multichain server access and keys to financial assets.

Over the past couple of days, the Multichain protocol has experienced several issues due to unforeseen circumstances. The team has done their best to maintain the protocol, but we are currently unable to reach CEO Zhaju and have the necessary server access for…

— Multichain (formerly Anyswap) (@MultichainOrg) May 31, 2023

In a lengthy tweet, Multichain detailed why the company is shutting down:

“Due to the lack of alternative sources of information and corresponding operating funds, the group has been forced to cease operations.”

After the arrest, Multichain was unable to communicate with its CEO, and all MPC node servers were under Zajun's private cloud account, allowing the team to continue its normal operations. All funds and investments held by Zhaojun are currently unavailable.

The team used the rest of the non-MPC server access to stay open with their community and update them on what was going on. After the Zhaojun family accessed the home computer, MultiChain team engineers allowed limited access to solve some technical problems. However, this was not enough to keep things afloat:

“All of Zhaojun's computers, phones, hardware bags and memorabilia have been seized by authorities. […] This also means that all of the team's money and access to its servers is with Zhaojun and the police.

On July 7, assets linked to MPC addresses were found to have been transferred to unknown addresses. Transactions returned to an IP in Cummings were found on the cloud server platform when the team tried to resume operations normally. The group asked the community to stay away from the bridge service due to this unknown behavior.

Multichain service is currently stopped, and all bridge transactions are stuck on source chains.

There is no guaranteed launch time.

Please do not use the Multichain Bridge service now.

— Multichain (formerly Anyswap) (@MultichainOrg) July 7, 2023

Then, Zhaojun's sister transferred the remaining user assets in the router's pool to addresses under her control on July 9. Unfortunately, she was also detained by the police on July 13, the status of the property she controlled is unclear.

In light of the above events and due to a lack of funding and key operational information, MultiChain announced on July 13 that all operations have ceased. The team enlisted the help of GoDaddy to take down the company's domain.

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