Its native cryptocurrency $MOVE has already gone through a dramatic downturn, crashing over 80% from its all-time high. Spiraling further down was an additional scandal of market manipulation that transpired in early March 2025. This scandal ultimately caught up with a market maker that had ties to Movement Labs. The token's value crashed to an all-time low of $0.18-$0.20 following the scandal's exposure, before experiencing a slight recovery to $0.25.

The consequences from the scandal have been extreme. Co-founder Rushi Manche recently took a sabbatical from his co-founding role, but Cooper Scanlon is still at the helm and helping to guide the project. The controversy has prompted a third-party investigation and caused $MOVE trading to be paused by Coinbase.

Scandal Unveils Unethical Market-Making Agreement

The tight illegal market-making arrangement that is being called a market manipulation scandal. Industry experts have intensely condemned it, labeling it “dangerous” and immoral. The heart of the problem is in the way the deal is designed. It allegedly pushed for fraudulent price pumping to achieve an audacious $5 billion valuation for $MOVE. This goal almost certainly led to chasing bloated metrics instead of real market need and sustainable expansion.

The settlement provided Rentech, the market maker at issue, with excessive influence over the token’s supply. So much influence had them at risk of manipulation. It further exposed the opacity around the mechanisms the token was using to discover its price. The terms were a radical departure from normal market-making activities and established a landscape vulnerable to exploitation.

The impacts of this deal started to have an immediate impact. A huge avalanche of sell-off totaling $38 million occurred and received weak demand from buyers. This sudden influx overwhelmed the market and led to a dramatic, immediate price collapse. Consequently, more than a third of $MOVE’s entire market cap disappeared, sending investor sentiment into a tailspin. The incident exposed the major vulnerabilities in the market-making agreement and the harm it caused to the token’s long-term viability.

Investigation and Leadership Response

In light of the worsening crisis, Movement Labs filed petition for third-party investigation on April 21, 2025. The independent cybersecurity firm Groom Lake accepted the challenge of doing a deep-dive, neutral investigation. Their attention was drawn to the market-making agreement and the related accusations of price manipulation. The investigation is looking to find out how far the wrongdoing goes. It will hold accountable everyone and everything involved and suggest steps to avoid such tragedies from recurring.

The leadership of Movement Labs has come in for criticism in the wake of the scandal. Co-founder Rushi Manche made the decision to temporarily step back from his role to allow the investigation to proceed without any perceived interference. This decision was viewed as a major showing of accountability and transparency in the wake of their tumultuous merger.

Ensuring this co-founded project weathers this unprecedented storm is co-founder Cooper Scanlon’s primary task during this difficult time. He still works non-stop to bring back $MOVE, faith in all $MOVE. Scanlon's leadership will be crucial in implementing the recommendations of the third-party investigation and rebuilding trust with the community and the broader cryptocurrency market. Fixing the problems exposed by the scandal is paramount. Most importantly, it will set the stage for the long-term success of the project.

Coinbase Suspends $MOVE Trading

Compounding $MOVE’s misery, crypto exchange behemoth Coinbase announced the suspension of trading the new token. In Coinbase’s regular review, that simple act of speech led to a relatively monumental decision. Specifically, they decided that $MOVE for whatever reason was no longer satisfying their high bar for listing. The specific reasons for the non-compliance were not disclosed in detail, but the timing of the suspension, coinciding with the market manipulation scandal, suggests a potential link.

This suspension marks a tremendous knee jerk against the accessibility and liquidity of $MOVE, especially given its initial trading debut on Coinbase. Coinbase is the largest platform for buying and selling cryptocurrency. When it makes the decision to delist a token, an immediate price drop and drastic change in investor sentiment usually occurs. As a result, trading on the suspension instantly went into “limit-only mode” across Coinbase’s platforms. This change published the code with the change, which effectively froze users’ ability to buy or sell $MOVE.

When a Strategic Reserve was announced, $MOVE shot up 25% in just a few hours in late March 2025. Since then, it has had a hard time rebounding from its bust. The token’s price currently hovers far below its all-time high. At the same time, the long-term impact of the continuing market-manipulation scandal weighs heavily on its future prospects. We recognize the road to recovery will be long and hard. It’s going to take a great deal of time and careful effort to restore trust, increase transparency, and demonstrate a robust commitment to ethical market practices.