An April 2025 CoinDesk investigation found that Movement was investigating whether it had been misled into signing a market-making agreement that gave a single counterparty unusual influence over MOVE’s circulating supply. Internal documents reviewed by CoinDesk at the time showed that the arrangement allowed 66 million MOVE tokens to be sold on the market a day after the token’s debut, contributing to a sharp drop in price.
The controversy centered on Rentech, a little-known middleman who acted in contracts associated with Chinese marketplace maker Web3Port. According to documents obtained by CoinDesk, Movement executives later questioned whether the fund believed Rentech was affiliated with Web3Port when it was not. Rentech has denied any wrongdoing or misrepresentation.
The fallout extended beyond Movement. Binance banned the market-making account involved in the token launch for what it described as misconduct, while Movement launched a token buyback program and hired an outside firm, Groom Lake, to review the events surrounding the deal.
Movement Labs and co-founder Rushi Manche parted ways in May 2025.
Recently, the company tried to chart a new course.
In June, Move Industries, a separate legal entity from MVMT Labs, the company that filed for bankruptcy, announced that it would pivot away from competing with other Ethereum scaling networks and instead focus on cross-border payments, remittances and stablecoin settlement. The company said it had secured access to licensed payments infrastructure in the US, Canada and the EU as it sought to build services aimed at new markets.
