"Playful Cloud" godfather's overseas escape, former Xunlei CEO Chen Lei's 200 million corruption mystery

Writing by: Maoske｜Deep Tide TechFlow

January 15, 2026, Shenzhen.

A civil complaint was filed and accepted by the court, seeking a recovery of up to 200 million yuan. The name on the defendant’s list feels like a lifetime ago—former Xunlei CEO Chen Lei, the man who once caused Xunlei’s stock price to surge fivefold in one month, has now become the protagonist of “corruption and hollowing out the company.”

Allegedly embezzling tens of millions of yuan of company funds to trade cryptocurrencies, arranging for relatives to fabricate contracts within the company to siphon off funds… In Xunlei’s statement, Chen Lei is accused of “multiple crimes.”

Rewind to October 31, 2017, also in Shenzhen, at the launch event of Wangxin Technology, where the lights were dazzling. Chen Lei, dressed in his signature white shirt, stood on stage and announced with his characteristic techie tone: “Xunlei will go all in on blockchain,” eliciting thunderous applause from the audience.

From deification to destruction, only a few short years have passed.

This is the story of a former prodigy falling from grace.

The Arrival of a Genius

“I met Lei Jun in September 2014. He invited me to join Xunlei, and we talked until after 2 a.m.” Years later, Chen Lei recalls that night which changed his destiny.

At that time, Chen Lei was a star executive at Tencent Cloud, a veteran in the cloud computing field. Xunlei, meanwhile, was a download giant showing signs of fatigue in the mobile internet era, desperately needing a tech-savvy, bold leader to steer its transformation.

Lei Jun convinced him, giving two reasons he couldn’t refuse: “You’re doing pretty well at Tencent, but who’s better—yourself or Tencent? If you leave Tencent, can you still do as well?” The second question: “Do you want to run a company where you can truly call the shots?”

“I was deeply moved by Lei Jun’s proposal. I felt he understood my heart and spoke my mind. At that time, I admired Lei Jun very much.”

Zou Shenglong, founder of Xunlei, offered very sincere conditions: he would serve as CTO of Xunlei while also becoming CEO of the newly established Wangxin Technology. The founding of Wangxin Technology coincided almost exactly with Chen Lei’s joining, giving him a relatively independent entrepreneurial platform.

Chen Lei’s ambitions went far beyond running an ordinary cloud computing company. With the rise of the sharing economy in 2014, Chen was keenly aware that reconstructing cloud architecture through sharing could innovate CDN technology, especially addressing the industry’s long-standing issues of “high cost, chaos, and poor quality.”

“The core value of Wangxin Technology is to build an IDC based on sharing economy, reducing social computing costs through sharing,” Chen said. Using the “Money Maker” hardware, ordinary users could share their idle bandwidth for profit, while Wangxin Technology would integrate these resources into CDN services.

The speed of turning this concept into reality was astonishing.

In June 2015, Wangxin Technology launched Xingyu CDN, priced at just three-quarters of the mainstream market rate, quickly establishing partnerships with Xiaomi, iQiyi, Zhanchiji, and other top companies.

By the end of 2015, Chen Lei was awarded the “Outstanding Person of the Year in the Internet Industry” for leading Wangxin Technology to innovate CDN technology.

By 2017, Xingyu Cloud’s shared computing model had over 1.5 million nodes online, with about 30T of reserved bandwidth and approximately 1500PB of storage. This was an unprecedented distributed computing network, successfully connecting thousands of households into a cloud network.

A perfect blend of technological idealism and business success, he seemed to have found the right way to change the world.

In July 2017, Chen Lei officially became CEO of Xunlei.

But beneath the glamorous surface, a complex situation was brewing. “Old Zou (Zou Shenglong) wanted to do an MBO (Management Buyout), but there was a disagreement with the major shareholders. In the end, this couldn’t be reconciled, and I was pushed out to become CEO. I was a bit scared at the time, thinking this position might not be good,” Chen Lei later recalled.

But history soon proved that this was only the calm before the storm. A bigger opportunity—or temptation—was beckoning him.

The Temptation of Issuing Coins

In 2017, if you missed Bitcoin, you missed an era.

Across the ocean in Silicon Valley, a wave of cryptocurrency ICOs swept through March and April of 2017. Bitcoin regained its upward momentum, doubling from $968 at the start of the year to $3000, while Ethereum surged from $8.3 to over $200, more than twentyfold.

Various forms of ICOs emerged rapidly. The booming virtual currency market inspired Chen Lei with blockchain ideas.

“Xunlei is fundamentally a P2P technology-based, decentralized internet company. From its core, Xunlei’s focus on shared computing gives it a better chance to succeed than others,” Chen once said. Unlike B2C models of other companies, Xunlei hoped to carve out a unique C2B path leveraging blockchain technology.

Under Chen’s push, the blockchain version of Xunlei’s Money Maker hardware, “Wankeyun,” was born.

Wankeyun adopted Bitcoin’s POW algorithm, allowing “mining” to generate digital assets called Wankecoin, with a total supply of 1.5 billion. The total issuance halves every 365 days, with mining output decreasing by half each year.

This design was considered “perfect”: it had physical hardware as a carrier, tied to actual computing services. Wankecoin is a native digital asset within Wankeyun’s shared computing ecosystem, closely linked to the hardware and the economic application of shared CDN.

Chen Lei framed this project as “shared computing + blockchain” technological innovation, rather than just a simple virtual currency issuance, thus avoiding ICO policy risks while enjoying the market benefits of blockchain concepts.

On October 31, 2017, Wankeyun was officially launched.

Chen Lei announced that the sharing computing service was open to all ordinary individual users, and Wankeyun launched the “Cloud Disk Mining” and “Wankey Reward” programs. Wankecoin could be exchanged within Xunlei’s ecosystem for value-added services, such as expandable storage and over 200 other services including Xunlei memberships.

The market reaction exceeded all expectations. At that time, blockchain was extremely hot, and Wankecoin’s price skyrocketed. On some trading platforms, the price jumped from the unofficial issuance price of 0.1 yuan to 9 yuan, a 90-fold increase.

Wankeyun was seen as a mining machine, with each unit priced from 338 yuan to a peak of 3240 yuan. Wankeyun also caused Xunlei’s stock price to rise fivefold within a month. In October 2017, Xunlei’s stock soared from $4.28 to $24.91, reaching a high of $27.

“Wankeyun, one unit at 599, netting a profit of 1500.”

Some players reported that early participants in Wankeyun’s Taobao crowdfunding, using snatch-up software and hiring interns to stockpile units, earned their first fortune in 2017 through Wankeyun. Some individual users participating in the reward program earned dozens of Wankecoin daily, recouping their investment in just a few days.

“Thanks to Xunlei’s Wankeyun, I learned about Bitcoin and blockchain, opening a new world,” said Jack, a cryptocurrency professional based in Hong Kong.

This was Chen Lei’s peak moment, and also the most glorious period in Xunlei’s history.

The tech idealist successfully transformed a traditional download tool company into a trendy blockchain concept stock, with market value multiplying several times over.

But beneath the shiny surface, a crisis was brewing.

The Wankecoin craze had deviated far from Chen Lei’s original vision, evolving from technological innovation into pure speculative frenzy.

The Crisis Arrives

Crises often start from within.

On November 28, 2017, Shenzhen Xunlei Big Data Information Service Co., Ltd. publicly pointed out that Chen Lei, then CEO of Xunlei, was engaged in illegal issuance of Wankeyun, without using any blockchain technology, and was conducting disguised ICO via illegal exchanges.

This seemingly “self-reporting” was essentially a direct conflict between old and new forces within Xunlei.

“The internal conflict at Xunlei in October 2017 was actually initiated by Yu Fei (former senior vice president of Xunlei). The core demand was to push me out,” Chen Lei later recalled.

On November 3, the People’s Bank of China, considering Wankecoin a product of Xunlei’s financial sector, summoned the responsible person, Hu Jie. After explanation, it was clarified that Wankecoin was a Wangxin business. Hu Jie then submitted an email to Xunlei’s senior management, stating that Wankecoin was not based on real blockchain technology, had disguised ICO features, and was suspected of inducing and supporting Wankecoin trading, with potential risks of group incidents.

On December 9, 2017, Wankecoin was renamed Chaink.

Before the internal conflict was resolved, external regulatory hammer fell.

In January 2018, the China Internet Finance Association issued a risk warning, stating that virtual digital assets issued via IMO models like Chaink were essentially a form of financing, a disguised ICO.

On the night of the association’s mention, Xunlei’s stock plummeted 27.38% at market open, and Chaink’s price also dropped sharply.

On January 16 and 17, 2018, Xunlei issued consecutive official notices, stating that Chaink would be fully integrated into Xunlei’s points system, and from January 31, only users within Xunlei and its partner applications could use Chaink, to clear ICO suspicions.

Following the announcement, Chaink’s price halved from 4 yuan to 2.5 yuan.

Due to regulatory attention, searching for Wankeyun on platforms like Xianyu showed violation notices, and hardware cloud disks were referred to as “wky” or “mother hen” by sellers.

On September 17, 2018, Xunlei announced the sale of blockchain businesses including Chaink, Chaink Mall, and Chaink Pocket to a tech group.

By the end of 2018, the official price of Wankeyun was 599 yuan, but on secondhand platforms, many units were resold for as low as 40 yuan. The huge gap between official and secondhand prices made the Wankeyun model unsustainable.

Investors voiced their anger: “Wankeyun is truly the worst thing I’ve bought in five years.” Some users publicly protested online, as the once profitable mining machines turned into scrap overnight.

The former star CEO became a target of criticism, and media that once praised him began questioning his motives and abilities.

The myth of deification shattered, but the story of deconstruction was far from over.

The Demise of the Deity

After the Wankecoin frenzy subsided, a company called “Xing Ronghe” quietly emerged. Founded in 2018, it appeared to be a bandwidth supplier for Xunlei, but its actual controller was Chen Lei himself.

Chen Lei explained: “In February 2017, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued regulations to clean up non-compliant market transactions, explicitly requiring bandwidth to be purchased from licensed companies. We shifted from buying bandwidth from households to buying from miners. To avoid risks from Wangxin, we bought a shell company called Xing Ronghe, which purchased hardware from Wangxin and resold it to miners. This way, we isolated risks from Wangxin.”

Chen emphasized that the business and capital flows of Xing Ronghe were closely linked to Xunlei, all for the company’s benefit.

However, investigations by Xunlei revealed that the situation was more complicated. From January 2019 to early 2020, Wangxin paid Xing Ronghe about 170 million yuan for resource node procurement.

The most dramatic episode occurred between March 31 and April 1, 2020. Chen Lei, then CEO of Xunlei and CEO of Wangxin, used his final approval authority to approve multiple payments totaling over 20 million yuan to Xing Ronghe within just two days.

Some payments were made before the normal payment deadlines, showing a “same-day approval, same-day transfer” rapid process without proper acceptance or settlement procedures.

Within 24 hours, on April 2, Xunlei’s board issued a statement removing Chen Lei from his CEO position.

Chen Lei vividly remembered the process: “On April 2, around 10:00 a.m., I was at home with a fever and didn’t go to the office. But colleagues told me that a bunch of white-clad bodyguards stormed into the office, ordering all staff to stop working. This happened before any communication with me. I knew nothing about it beforehand.”

In addition to financial transfers, Xunlei also accused Chen Lei of personnel poaching before his removal.

In March 2020, Chen Lei arranged for Dong Dui and Liu Chao to meet with 35 core employees, arranging their collective resignation and transfer to Xing Ronghe. This directly led Wangxin to pay over 9 million yuan in severance and stock repurchase.

Even more bizarre was the control structure behind Xing Ronghe: legal representative Zhao Yuqin was Liu Chao’s mother; shareholder Tian Weihong of “Hong En Technology” was Dong Dui’s mother; legal person Xu Yanling was related to Dong Dui and Chen Lei’s driver, Yao Bingwen; Chen Lei and Dong Dui had a son together, forming a close利益共同体.

In April 2020, shortly after Chen Lei’s removal, he left China. On October 8 of the same year, Xunlei announced that the former CEO Chen Lei was suspected of occupational embezzlement and had been filed for investigation by the Shenzhen Public Security Bureau, calling on Chen Lei to “return to China promptly for cooperation.”

Over six years, Xunlei’s efforts to recover rights and pursue legal action faced serious evidence collection obstacles because Chen Lei was overseas. Among five cases involving Wangxin and Xing Ronghe, multiple notices mentioned “defendants are untraceable, court uses publication service.”

By the end of 2022, due to objective limitations, the public security authorities withdrew the case after failing to obtain sufficient evidence. Criminal prosecution was temporarily halted, but civil claims had only just begun.

On January 15, 2026, after more than five years, Xunlei and its subsidiary Wangxin Technology reinitiated civil litigation, seeking a recovery of up to 200 million yuan. The case has now been accepted and filed by a Shenzhen court.

The list of defendants is long: Chen Lei, Dong Dui, Liu Chao, Zhao Yuqin, as well as Xing Ronghe and its related shareholders. The 200 million yuan claim includes approximately 170 million yuan paid to Xing Ronghe for procurement, plus about 28 million yuan in other claims.

Postscript

“I may have committed many taboos of professional managers, and indeed offended some people,”

“Too naive,”

“You ask if I regret moving from Tencent Cloud to Xunlei? How could I not regret? I shouldn’t have been CEO in 2017. That was a feud with the old team.”

This was Chen Lei’s self-reflection in 2020.

But once power is in hand, it’s hard to let go. When technological innovation intertwines with capital speculation and personal ambition, the result is often catastrophic.

Chen Lei’s story is a mirror reflecting the complexity and multifaceted nature of China’s internet industry development. Innovation and speculation coexist, idealism and realism clash, regulation lags behind market frenzy.

In this rapidly changing era, everyone can be a beneficiary of the trend or a sacrifice to history. Chen Lei was once a lucky one chosen by the times, but ultimately abandoned by it.

In the game of technology and capital, maintaining original intentions is more difficult than achieving success, and perhaps the only way to survive cycles and avoid destruction is to stay true to oneself.

The cycle of deification and destruction will continue, but hopefully next time, we can learn more.

References:

1. “5 Years of Cold Cases and 2 Billion Yuan Claims: Xunlei Reopens Lawsuit, Accusing Former CEO Chen Lei of Secretly Hollowing Out the Company,” First Financial

2. “The Rise and Fall of Chen Lei at Xunlei: White-clad Men Suddenly Arrive; Lei Jun Knows Everything,” Chief Character Perspective