Coinbase announced Thursday that it would suspend trading of the Movement (MOVE) token on May 15 at 2:00 p.m. ET after a routine review of listed assets. The token is under heightened scrutiny for governance failures and market manipulation surrounding the decision.
Coinbase quickly stated that MOVE order books had already switched to ‘limit only’ mode. This particular change prevents users from placing or cancelling limiting orders, which results in being stopped in all market price trading.
MOVE Token Falls Amid Pump-and-Dump Probe
This immediately triggered a sell-off. MOVE’s price had dropped by about 20% in just a matter of hours, from $0.25 to $0.20.
That came after mounting controversy surrounding MOVE’s launch and its price action since. Movement Network co-founder Cooper Scanlon took a mid-April leave of absence after what insiders described as market maker abnormalities. Now, a suspicious pump and dump scheme tied to a China-based market maker, Web3Port, is central to an investigation into the irregularities.
The internal documents CoinDesk obtained suggest that more than 5% of MOVE’s total supply has been given to Web3Port. Accordingly, the money was allegedly channelled through an obscure middleman, Rentech, a firm permitted to sell tokens as long as MOVE’s fully diluted valuation exceeded $5 billion, which MOVE token supposedly crossed on December 9 when it listed on Binance.
In addition to these losses, on launch day alone, the entire Web3Port liquidation event generated $38m in revenue and sent MOVE’s price plummeting for days afterwards. The values for those same tokens come to roughly $15.7 million. But, according to leaked contracts, the profits from the sale were cut equally between Rentech and the Movement Foundation.
Matters were further complicated by the Movement Foundation and Web3Port being reportedly linked to World Liberty Financial Inc. (WLFI), a crypto venture associated with Trump family members. In January, WLFY purchased 3.42 million MOVE tokens for $1.5 million and raised a $10 million investment secured by Web3Port.
Coinbase has not directly addressed its upcoming delisting of the MOVE token in its rationale, but has stated its commitment toward assuring asset quality in its various undertakings. “The company said that it regularly monitors the assets on its exchange to make sure they satisfy the requirements in order to be listed.”
However, the Movement Network has not issued a public comment in response to the delisting.
