MOVE Plummets Upon Listing! CoinDesk Reports Market Makers Exploit Investors for Profit, Movement Claims Victim Status

Movement: A Promising Blockchain Project Supported by Trump’s Team Entangled in a Scandal

Originally viewed with optimism, the blockchain project Movement, backed by Trump’s team World Liberty Financial, has unexpectedly become embroiled in a scandal involving token sell-offs, manipulation of paper profits, and dual contracts. According to internal documents and contracts obtained by CoinDesk, the case reveals a complex web of stakeholders and opaque operations, which even led to a plummet in the MOVE token price the day after its listing, resulting in its ban by Binance exchange.

Behind the Secret Contracts: Who Allowed Rentech to Control MOVE Supply?

According to internal investigative documents, Movement signed a contract authorizing an intermediary named Rentech to hold approximately 5% of the total supply of MOVE tokens, allowing Rentech to sell off as many as 66 million tokens the day after the MOVE token was listed, causing a rapid market crash. More surprisingly, Movement was initially informed that Rentech was a subsidiary of the market maker Web3Port, which turned out not to be the case. This misunderstanding has led the senior management of Movement to suspect that they unknowingly signed an agreement with incentives for price manipulation.

Market Maker Abuse of Power: Price Stability Turned into Arbitrage

The original intent of a Market Maker is to provide liquidity and stability for new tokens; however, in this incident, the role of the market maker was used to quietly manipulate the market and sell tokens in large quantities. According to comments from cryptocurrency entrepreneur Zaki Manian, the contract even contained a clause encouraging the Fully Diluted Value (FDV) of MOVE tokens to be pushed to $5 billion (it was $2.4 billion at the time of reporting), and then to sell off for arbitrage while sharing profits with the project team. He stated, “The very fact that such clauses can be discussed is insane.”

Confusion Over Multiple Roles: Rentech Acting for Both Parties

A series of contracts obtained by CoinDesk show that Rentech acted as both the agent representing Movement and was also listed as a subsidiary of Web3Port in the contract. This design created a space for Rentech to negotiate with both sides, effectively signing contracts with itself. Such a structure is extremely rare in the cryptocurrency industry and facilitated Rentech’s subsequent rapid liquidation of $38 million in MOVE tokens.

Binance Bans Accounts, Movement Initiates Buyback to Calm the Storm

The MOVE token was sold off the day after its listing, causing a sharp decline and raising market suspicions, prompting Binance to ban accounts related to the market makers for “improper behavior.” In an effort to regain market confidence, Movement initiated a token buyback plan, claiming to investigate whether anyone had sold tokens in advance without authorization.

Internal Connections at Movement: Who is the Puppet Master?

Movement was founded by two 22-year-old dropouts from Vanderbilt University, Rushi Manche and Cooper Scanlon, and quickly rose to fame with support from Trump’s backed World Liberty Financial. However, this scandal has brought the relationships among the founders and senior management into the spotlight. According to multiple insiders interviewed by CoinDesk, the agreement with Rentech was first proposed by co-founder Rushi Manche and promoted internally. Additionally, informal advisor Sam Thapaliya, who is a partner of Rentech founder Galen Law-Kun, is suspected of being one of the behind-the-scenes orchestrators.

Did Legal Advisors Fulfill Their Duties? Who Oversaw the Contracts?

Movement Foundation’s legal counsel YK Pek referred to the original contract internally as “possibly the worst agreement I’ve ever seen,” warning that it handed market dominance to an unverified entity. However, the subsequent revised contract was led by him, which, although it removed some high-risk clauses, retained the critical content allowing for the liquidation of 5% of the supply. DNS records indicate that the domain related to Rentech was only registered on the day the contract was signed, adding more suspicion.

The Truth Behind Rentech: Financial Intermediary or Shadow Organization?

Rentech was founded by Law-Kun and claims to be a subsidiary of the Singapore financial company Autonomy, aimed at helping Asian family offices invest in cryptocurrency projects. However, CoinDesk found no concrete evidence that the Movement Foundation or its legal counsel directly participated in its establishment. Pek clarified that he has never served as General Counsel for Law-Kun or his companies, having only briefly reviewed documents and provided corporate secretary services.

Movement Declares Itself a Victim, Initiates Third-Party Review

Co-founder Cooper Scanlon stated in an internal Slack message that the company has hired external auditing firm Groom Lake to conduct a comprehensive investigation, emphasizing that “Movement is the victim in this incident.” However, trust from the market and community may already be damaged, and the road to rebuilding the MOVE token will surely be fraught with challenges.

Movement’s Response: Under Investigation

Following CoinDesk’s report, Movement stated: “Movement Labs is aware of CoinDesk’s report. Movement Labs and Movement Network Foundation have commissioned a detailed third-party review of the unusual behavior of market makers. The review by Groom Lake is currently ongoing. Once we have all the details, we will immediately share the investigation results.” “Based on the review results, we will implement significant governance changes to ensure that such incidents do not occur again at Movement.”

Risk Warning

Investing in cryptocurrency carries a high level of risk, and prices can be highly volatile, resulting in the loss of your entire principal. Please carefully assess the risks.