Multichain Ceases Operations Following CEO’s Detention by Chinese Police

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Multichain Ceases Operations Following CEO’s Detention by Chinese Police

Multichain, one of the largest bridging protocols in the crypto world, has announced it is ceasing operations following the detention of CEO Zhaojun and his sister by Chinese police. In a thread on its Twitter page on Friday, the company said it had been forced to take this action ‘due to lack of alternative sources of information and corresponding operational funds.’

Zhaojun was taken away by Chinese police on May 21, with his computers, phones, hardware wallets, and mnemonic phrases all confiscated. His sister was taken into custody on Thursday, and the team has had no contact with Zhaojun since. The team had been relying on existing access to servers that had not been revoked and with assistance from Zhaojun’s sister, who transferred the remaining user assets in the router pool as a preservation action. With the sister now out of contact, the status of the assets she has preserved is uncertain, Multichain said.

The protocol’s precarious existence was highlighted last week when it was exploited for $130 million after an attacker drained funds from numerous token bridges. According to Zhaojun’s sister, login information from an IP address in Kunming was found on the cloud server platform, along with a series of operations transferring funds from the MPC addresses.

Multichain’s MULTI token has dropped nearly 12% since the announcement, sinking from around $2.28 to $2.01.