Binance Cracks Down on Market Manipulation, Bans “Movement” (MOVE) Project Market Maker

Key Takeaways:

• Binance penalizes a MOVE market maker linked to previous misconduct.
• The market maker allegedly profited by manipulating MOVE token trades.
• Movement Labs plans to buy back $38 million worth of tokens to compensate affected users.

Some in the crypto community speculate that Web3port might be the market maker for GoPlus, MyShell, and Movement, projects that were recently investigated by Binance.

The exchange has reportedly frozen the market maker’s funds and partnered with Movement Labs and Movement Foundation to redistribute them to affected users — a clear sign that the exchange is taking an active stance toward its user base. Binance has reiterated that maintaining a fair trading environment remains one of its top priorities, and it will continue monitoring trading activities for any suspicious patterns.

Binance’s investigation revealed that the MOVE market maker may have been connected to another market maker previously banned for misconduct. Concerns escalated further as it turned out that this market maker had also serviced other project(s) like GoPlus Security (GPS) and MyShell (SHELL) — opening up questions on a possible pattern of misconduct.

Market makers are intermediaries that provide liquidity to exchanges in return for other assets. Binance, however, has strict rules against market manipulation. These include maintaining adequate order size, limiting excessive bid-ask spreads, and preventing disruptive high-frequency trading.

Binance stated that its investigation found the market maker in violation of these principles. On December 10, 2024, one day after the MOVE token was listed, the market maker allegedly sold around 66 million MOVE tokens at negligible buy orders. This amounted to approximately 38 million USDT of net profit before Binance finally offboarded the company on March 18, 2025.

The market maker has not been publicly identified by Binance. However, rumors about this have circulated within the crypto ecosystem. Web3port might be the market maker for GoPlus, MyShell, and Movement that were recently audited by Binance.

On Saturday, Movement Labs and the Movement Foundation released a statement saying they had not known of the market maker’s “assumed wrongdoing” before the announcement, and emphasized their openness to the media. They said they had chosen the firm based on its work on behalf of other projects in the Movement ecosystem.

However, they have now pledged to use the frozen funds for a MOVE token buyback program. In their statement, all cash proceeds redeemed from the Market Maker will be used by the Movement Network Foundation to create the Movement Strategic Reserve: a 38M $USDT buyback of $MOVE for long-term utility and to return the USDT liquidity to the Movement ecosystem.

Although this initiative is better than having no provision at all, it raises concerns about the quality of due diligence in selecting market makers and the overall need for greater transparency in such partnerships. It highlights the fundamental risks in the crypto industry.

More News: Binance Staff Suspended Amid Insider Trading Allegations

Binance’s decisive action has intensified scrutiny on market makers involved in the MOVE project. Flowdesk allegedly received 1.66 million MOVE tokens from the project team, which were then deposited on exchanges such as Coinbase, OKX, and KuCoin. Likewise, GSR Markets allegedly received 70 million MOVE tokens and transferred them to other exchanges. No clear evidence implicates Flowdesk or GSR Markets, but their involvement raises community concerns.

Notably, despite the controversy, the price of the MOVE token briefly appreciated almost 7% after the announcement of the buyback program, climbing to $0.4597. This highlights market movement in response to the information surrounding potential price support mechanisms as well as the volatility and sensitivity of the crypto market. This incident reinforces Binance’s commitment to combating market manipulation.

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