We study the equilibrium and dynamical properties of the axial next-nearest-neighbor Ising chain at the multiphase point. An interesting property of the system is the macroscopic degeneracy of the ground state leading to finite zero-temperature entropy. In our equilibrium study we consider the effect of softening the spins. We show that the degeneracy of the ground state is lifted and there is a qualitative change in the low-temperature behavior of the system with a well-defined low-temperature peak of the specific heat that carries the thermodynamic `‘weight’' of the ground state entropy. In our study of the dynamical properties, the stochastic Kawasaki dynamics is considered. The Fokker-Planck operator for the process corresponds to a quantum spin Hamiltonian similar to the Heisenberg ferromagnet but with constraints on allowed states. This leads to a number of differences in its properties, which are obtained through exact numerical diagonalization, simulations, and by obtaining various analytic bounds.