MOVE Plummets 20% as Coinbase Pulls the Plug—Trading Halts May 15
Another day, another crypto casualty. MOVE token tanks 20% after Coinbase—the blue-chip exchange that somehow still calls itself ’for the builders’—announces trading suspension effective May 15.
No reasons given, but let’s be real: when exchanges start dumping tokens like hot potatoes, it’s usually because regulators are sniffing around or liquidity’s drier than a DeFi yield farm in a bear market.
Pro tip for traders: maybe don’t FOMO into assets that even Coinbase—a company that lists dog coins for breakfast—considers too radioactive to touch.
MOVE’s controversy
The decision comes amid controversy surrounding MOVE’s market activity and governance. In mid-April, the Movement Network was scrutinized after co-founder Cooper Scanlon took a leave of absence and reports surfaced of “market Maker abnormalities.”
Those abnormalities are now at the center of an investigation into a potential pump-and-dump scheme linked to a market maker called Web3Port.
Internal documents obtained by CoinDesk reveal that Web3Port, a China-based firm, was assigned over 5% of MOVE’s total token supply, which was then allegedly routed through an obscure entity called Rentech.
This arrangement allowed Rentech to offload MOVE tokens if the project’s fully diluted value exceeded $5 billion—an event that reportedly occurred on December 9, the day MOVE launched on Binance.
BREAKING : $MOVE will delisted from @coinbase .
Congratulations 🎊 to @movementlabsxyz @rushimanche pic.twitter.com/2MU1z5xWbz
On that day, Web3Port liquidated 66 million MOVE tokens, generating $38 million in sales and triggering a sharp price decline. Those same tokens are now worth about $15.7 million. Contracts reportedly split the profits from such sales 50/50 between Rentech and the Movement Foundation.
The Movement Foundation and Web3Port both have ties to World Liberty Financial Inc., a crypto venture backed by members of the Trump family. In January, WLFI purchased 3.42 million MOVE tokens for $1.5 million and also received a $10 million investment from Web3Port.
Coinbase has not directly cited the pump-and-dump allegations in its delisting rationale but reiterated that it regularly monitors assets for compliance with listing standards.
