Movement officially claims to have been misled into signing a malicious agreement, which experts point out may facilitate price manipulation. This article is sourced from Sam Kessler's piece on Coindesk (Movement Token Slumps 14% as Coinbase Suspends Trading), compiled and written by Chain Catcher. (Background: Binance exposed the market maker's 'malicious dumping of MOVE' that reaped $38 million, and the foundation: will initiate a buyback. The community angrily revealed the culprit is it.) (Additional context: Movement announced $MOVE tokenomics: 50% for the community, a full organization of the mainnet and roadmap.) Event highlights: Movement Labs is investigating whether it was misled into signing a market-making agreement without full knowledge. The agreement transferred control of 66 million MOVE tokens to an unidentified intermediary, resulting in a massive sell-off worth $38 million immediately after the token was listed. Internal contracts show a company with almost no digital footprint, Rentech, appeared on both sides of the transaction: on one side as a subsidiary of Web3Port, and on the other as an agent of the Movement Foundation, raising external doubts about 'self-dealing'. Insiders at the Movement Foundation initially warned about this transaction, calling it 'the worst agreement they had ever seen'; experts pointed out that the agreement may structurally induce pre-emptive actions to inflate the token price and then dump the tokens to retail investors. This incident exposed serious divisions among the senior leadership of Movement: executives, legal advisors, and project consultants pushed the transaction despite internal opposition, and their actions are currently under full scrutiny. A financial agreement originally intended to boost the listing of the MOVE cryptocurrency ultimately turned into a token sell-off scandal, not only leading to Binance banning trading but also sparking intense internal disputes within the team. Documents obtained by CoinDesk reveal the key issues of this crisis and explain how the incident spiraled out of control. According to internal documents reviewed by CoinDesk, the blockchain project Movement—developer of the MOVE cryptocurrency—is investigating whether it was misled into signing a financial agreement without full knowledge. This agreement granted a single entity extraordinarily concentrated control over the MOVE token market. This agreement led to 66 million tokens being rapidly dumped into the market the day after the MOVE token was first listed on exchanges on December 9, triggering a price crash and igniting strong suspicions of 'insider trading'. Notably, the project received backing from World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture capital platform supported by Trump. Cooper Scanlon, co-founder of Movement Labs, stated in a Slack message on April 21 that the company is investigating why over 5% of MOVE tokens originally reserved for market maker Web3Port were transferred through an intermediary named Rentech. He pointed out, 'The foundation was originally led to believe that Rentech was a subsidiary of Web3Port, but the facts are clearly not so.' Rentech denies any false statements or misleading actions. Slack message from Movement co-founder Cooper Scanlon. Rentech is spelled 'Rentek'. (Obtained by CoinDesk) According to an internal memorandum from the Movement Foundation, the contract signed with Rentech effectively lent about half of the publicly circulating MOVE tokens to a single trading counterparty. This gave that entity extraordinarily large control over this early-stage token. Several experts told CoinDesk that such arrangements are highly unusual. Even more concerning, the version of the contract obtained by CoinDesk shows it included an incentive mechanism for 'manipulating the token price to a fully diluted valuation exceeding $5 billion, then dumping the tokens to retail investors and proportionately sharing the profits.' Senior crypto project founder Zaki Manian bluntly stated after reviewing the documents: 'Even just participating in such a black-and-white written contract is crazy.' Market makers are typically hired to provide liquidity for newly issued tokens, usually trading on exchanges with funds lent by the token issuer, thereby stabilizing prices. However, this role can also be easily abused, allowing insiders to quietly manipulate the market and cash out large amounts of tokens without immediately alerting the public. A series of contract documents obtained by CoinDesk reveal the gray areas in the crypto industry characterized by weak regulation and opaque legal structures—these loopholes often turn publicly-facing projects into tools for the benefit of a select few. Although rumors of market-making mechanisms being abused are common in the crypto circle, specific details behind them are rarely made public. The market-making contract reviewed by CoinDesk shows that Rentech appeared simultaneously as an agent of the Movement Foundation and as a subsidiary of Web3Port in the agreement—this 'dual identity' arrangement theoretically enabled it to dominate terms and profit from them. Ultimately, the collaboration between Movement and Rentech resulted in a wallet associated with the Chinese financial company Web3Port rapidly dumping $38 million worth of MOVE tokens the day after the token was listed on exchanges. Web3Port claims to have collaborated with projects like MyShell, GoPlus Security, and Trump-backed World Liberty Financial. Due to misconduct, the exchange Binance subsequently banned the market-making account, and Movement announced it would initiate a token buyback program. Similar to stock options mechanisms in startups, tokens in crypto projects typically have lock-up periods to prevent insiders from dumping large amounts of tokens during the project's early trading stages. However, Binance's ban decision has raised market doubts about Movement—there is a widespread belief that the project team may have reached some form of advance unlocking agreement with Web3Port, although Movement denies this claim. Mutual accusations Movement is one of the most closely watched crypto projects in recent years, positioned as a next-generation Layer 2 blockchain aimed at enhancing Ethereum's scalability based on the Move programming language launched by Facebook. The project was founded by two young individuals, Rushi Manche and Cooper Scanlon, who dropped out of Vanderbilt University at just 22 years old and successfully raised $38 million.

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