Binance Announces Investigation into Malicious Token Dumping by Move Market Maker
Binance issued a statement this afternoon indicating that a recent investigation uncovered malicious token dumping by a market maker associated with Move, resulting in the freezing of $38 million in profits. In response, the Movement Foundation stated that the recovered $38 million will be used to repurchase MOVE tokens. On the other hand, researcher Chen Jian indicated that the market maker involved in the dumping of MOVE tokens is suspected to be Web3port, the same entity previously involved in the malicious dumping of GPS and Shell tokens.
(Background: Comment on GPS and SHELL – Are market makers acting maliciously? A glimpse into the corruption in the crypto industry)
(Context: GPS market makers “listing sell orders across the board” saw an 80% plunge in three days! Binance announces a ban and freezing of illicit profits: will compensate users)
Background on GPS Market Maker Issues
On the 4th of this month, after Binance announced the launch of the Web3 security infrastructure project GoPlus Security (GPS), the price of GPS tokens began to plummet, raising market suspicions of malicious actions by GPS market makers. Subsequently, on the 7th, Binance officially revealed that the sharp decline in GPS was due to a market maker dumping approximately 70 million tokens.
In response to this incident, Binance implemented relevant measures, including delisting the market maker, banning them from conducting any market-making activities on the Binance platform, and confiscating all associated profits.
Binance: MOVE Market Maker Maliciously Dumped for $38 Million
In this context, Binance released a new announcement today (25th) at 3 PM, stating that a recent investigation found a link between the market maker of the public chain Movement (MOVE) tokens and the market maker recently banned by Binance. The announcement provided relevant evidence and handling measures:
- We discovered that a market maker for the Movement (MOVE) project is associated with another market maker recently delisted and banned from any market-making activities on Binance due to regulatory violations.
- We found that this market maker engaged in the following market-making activities:
- On December 10, 2024 (UTC+8), the day after the MOVE token was launched, this market maker dumped approximately 66 million MOVE tokens, with very few buy orders.
- The final profit for this market maker before being delisted on March 18, 2025 (UTC+8) was $38 million USDT.
To better protect Binance users, we have taken the following additional measures regarding the improper actions of this market maker:
- Notified the Movement Labs and Movement Foundation teams about the market maker’s market violations;
- Frozen the market maker’s related profits;
- The MOVE project team has committed to using the market maker’s related profits to compensate users (the project team will announce a detailed plan);
- Delisted the market maker and prohibited any further market-making activities on Binance.
We remind all project teams authorized market makers on Binance to strictly adhere to the following principles and rules:
- Ensure both buy and sell orders have support;
- Ensure there is sufficient order volume at designated depth levels;
- Provide a healthy and stable market depth;
- Ensure orders remain posted for a certain period to avoid high-frequency posting and withdrawal disrupting the market.
Any project team authorized market maker that does not comply with or violates these principles and rules will face further actions from Binance to better protect our users.
Thank you for your long-standing support and trust in Binance. We will continue to build the blockchain ecosystem in an open, transparent, and sustainable manner. Thank you for your support of Binance!
Movement Foundation: We Were Unaware
Following Binance’s announcement, the Movement Foundation urgently issued a statement expressing that they were completely unaware of the market maker’s actions:
On March 11, Binance notified us that it was investigating a specific market maker involved with multiple tokens (including $MOVE). The Movement Network Foundation and Movement Labs are completely unaware of this matter. We chose to collaborate with this market maker because they had already supported projects within the Movement ecosystem. Once we found out they were actually taking actions detrimental to the ecosystem, we immediately took action.
Thanks to Binance, we learned that shortly after the MOVE token generation event (TGE) in December 2024, the market maker sold a large amount of MOVE tokens without completing meaningful buy orders. This goes against our intentions, was not approved by us, and violated our agreement, which requires market makers to provide liquidity on both sides of the MOVE/USDT trading pair. Once Binance notified us that this behavior had occurred, we collaborated with Binance to take action to recover the funds.
Meanwhile, the Movement Foundation also made the following responses:
- Cut ties with the market maker: Upon learning what had happened, we severed all ties with this market maker (including ecosystem partnerships).
- Notified other exchanges: We contacted other major exchanges to inform them of the ongoing investigation.
- Closely collaborated with Binance: Throughout the entire incident, we actively collaborated with Binance.
- Developed a repurchase plan: The Movement Network Foundation committed to using the funds recovered from the market maker for repurchasing $MOVE on the open market.
In the repurchase plan, the Movement Foundation specifically stated that it would use the $38 million USDT recovered from the market maker to repurchase MOVE:
All cash proceeds recovered from the market maker will be used by the Movement Network Foundation to establish a Movement strategic reserve: a $38 million USDT repurchase plan to purchase MOVE for long-term use and return USDT liquidity to the Movement ecosystem. To ensure transparency and a commitment to the community, the purchase of MOVE using the recovered $38 million USDT will take place on Binance over the next three months. The purchased $MOVE will be regularly transferred to the Movement strategic reserve on-chain wallet: 0xA14C8e3eBb2Da43d027dC2c1b763387B9D59cACe.
Market Maker Suspected to be Web3port
Additionally, crypto research KOL Chen Jian (Jason) tweeted that, through various information sources, it can be confirmed that the market maker being investigated and banned by Binance is Web3port. Notably, the malicious market makers for GPS and Shell were also suspected to be Web3port:
Through the aggregation of various information, it can basically be confirmed that the market makers for Goplus, Myshell, and Movement recently investigated by Binance are all the same Web3port. It is astonishing why such a market maker has the capability to sign so many projects consecutively. Even more terrifying is that they made $38 million in a single project; such profitability is too exaggerated… and this is just what has been exposed; how many more projects and market makers remain undisclosed? The entire crypto circle seems to be working for market makers. It feels like Binance is sharpening its knives against market makers, ready to take down large holders and redistribute the land.
$MOVE Price Surge
Following Binance’s announcement, the price of $MOVE also experienced an upward momentum, reporting $0.462 at press time, with an increase of over 7% in the last 24 hours.
