☠️• Mar/2025: Binance detects dumping of 66M MOVE and freezes $38M. ✅
Movement Labs suspended its co-founder Rushi Manche on Thursday night (1) amid a serious crisis involving token dumping and accusations of market manipulation with the $MOVE token.
“🗣️ This decision was made in light of ongoing events and while the third-party review is still underway,” wrote Movement Labs on X (Twitter).
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🧨 The MOVE scandal: 66 million tokens, profit of $38 million, and Binance blocking
It all began with the revelation that a market maker sold 66 million MOVE tokens, making about $38 million in USDT. Binance identified and blocked the operation in March, immediately notifying Movement Labs and the foundation behind the project.
In response, Coinbase announced the suspension of the token trading — with effect set for May 15. Hours later, the official suspension of Rushi Manche came, further worsening the crisis of confidence surrounding the ecosystem.
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🕵️♂️ The origin of the problem: obscure contracts with a “shell” company
According to CoinDesk's investigation, Movement Labs allegedly entered into a market-making agreement with Rentech, misleadingly presented as a subsidiary of Web3Port.
Only that Rentech:
☠️• Does not have a website
☠️• No active digital presence
☠️• Controlled 5% of the total $MOVE supply
☠️• Had contractual goals to raise the token to $5 billion in valuation — and then dump it
In other words: a script ready for price manipulation, incentivized through a contract with shared profits. A typical self-trading model in the crypto world — now exposed.
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🔍 Official reaction: external audit and temporary silence
Movement Labs hired Groom Lake to conduct an independent audit. The investigation is ongoing and should clarify Rentech's role, the contractual terms, and the possible involvement of internal members.
🗣️ “As soon as all the details are clarified, we will publicly share the findings,” said Movement in a statement.
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📅 MOVE Scandal Timeline
👻• Dec/2024: Launch of the MOVE token (beta mainnet) 🥷
☠️• Mar/2025: Binance detects dumping of 66M MOVE and freezes $38M. ✅
☠️• 01/May/2025: Coinbase announces trading suspension (effective on 15/05) ✅
☠️• 01/May/2025 - Night: Rushi Manche is suspended by Movement Labs ✅
☠️• 02/May/2025: CoinDesk reveals details about Rentech and its contracts ✅
👮♂️• May/2025 (ongoing): Groom Lake conducts external investigation 🚔
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📉☠️📉 — Reputational Risk, Broken Governance, and a Warning for Web3
The suspension of Manche is more than symbolic: it reveals a collapse in the governance of emerging Web3 projects. The rhetoric of decentralization crumbles when:
• ⚠️ Critical functions are handed over to obscure entities, without transparency
• 🔄 There are explicit incentives to inflate prices and carry out planned dumping
• 🕰️ Responses only emerge after external alerts — Binance and Coinbase did the hard work
Even with the audit ongoing, the Movement ecosystem is under intense pressure. The token $MOVE is at risk of becoming just another case study of structural failures in the crypto market.
