Movement Labs, Foundation conducts ‘investigation’ into ‘market maker abnormalities’

Movement is “conducting an internal investigation stemming from recent events,” according to a company Slack message

article-image

Movement Labs co-founder Rushi Manche | Permissionless III by Mike Lawrence for Blockworks

share

Movement Labs and Movement Network are conducting an investigation following last month’s market maker issues, when Binance removed an unnamed market maker after “misconduct” around MOVE’s token, Blockworks has learned.

A Movement Labs spokesperson confirmed a third-party review when reached by Blockworks.

In internal Slack messages seen by Blockworks, a profile belonging to Movement co-founder Cooper Scanlon said the investigation into “recent events” has “various routes […] [that] are still being explored,” and “nothing is definitive yet.” The third party involved in the investigation was not named. 

In a message to Blockworks, a Movement Labs spokesperson said:

“Movement Network Foundation is conducting a third-party review following recent market maker abnormalities — a standard best practice to ensure full transparency and accountability. It would be inappropriate to speculate on the outcome of the review or any actions that may or may not result. Operations continue normally as the review is conducted.” 

Additionally, Movement Labs co-founder Rushi Manche took a temporary leave from the company for an undetermined amount of time, multiple sources told Blockworks.

One source said Scanlon announced Manche’s “temporary leave of absence” during a company all-hands on Monday. The company held an onsite in San Francisco last week which Manche did not attend, according to people familiar.

Manche told Blockworks today that he was “still at” Movement Labs, though neither Manche nor Movement Labs specifically responded to a question asking to confirm if he’d been on leave.

A spokesperson told Blockworks that operations “are continuing as normal” at the firm. 

The reason or length of Manche’s leave was not immediately made clear. Employees had noticed Manche’s profile was no longer in the company Slack on Friday and Monday, according to multiple sources. However, Blockworks was told by a source that Manche’s Slack account was reactivated by the end of the day on Monday. 

Manche told Blockworks that he’s “still in Slack and [has] been doing ecosystem calls all week.”

On Monday afternoon — the same day Manche’s leave was announced internally — he took to X to advertise “weekly ecosystem syncs” with developers alongside his co-founder, Cooper Scanlon.

The investigation comes a few weeks after Binance disclosed that it had investigated the MOVE token for market-making irregularities. Last month, Binance announced that it offboarded an entity behind “misconduct” around MOVE, Movement’s native token. 

Binance didn’t return multiple requests for comment regarding the market maker. 

A screenshot of Web3Port reposting a Movement Labs post from February. The repost was seemingly removed later. 

Movement declined to name the market maker at the time, though crypto sleuth ZachXBT had been told the project was linked to Web3Port. An examination by Blockworks revealed that Web3Port had engaged with Movement Labs’ social media posts in the past few months.

Disclosure: Blockworks co-founder Jason Yanowitz is an angel investor in Movement Labs.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Unlocked by Template (10).png

Research

Innovations on Aptos’ technical design through Raptr, Shardines, and Zaptos approach near-optimal latency and throughput by unlocking 100% utilization of network resources, with the capacity to settle 260k transactions per second with latencies less than 800ms. The original Move language was revamped with the launch of Move 2, supporting more expressivity in smart contract logic and a scalable ability to interact with high volume datasets. The ecosystem has benefitted from strong asset inflows, now hosting over $1.3B in stablecoins, $450M in bridged BTC, and $530M in RWAs. Activity in the Aptos ecosystem has grown notably over the past year, with monthly application revenue reaching ~$835k and monthly DEX volumes growing to over $5B, both at new all time highs.

article-image

Interchain Labs will focus on sovereign L1s and institutional demand, abandoning plans for smart contracts on the Cosmos Hub

article-image

Also, only three tokens have outperformed bitcoin so far this year: XMR, HYPE and SKY

article-image

The fund group has submitted proposals in recent months for other funds that would hold litecoin, solana, XRP, HBAR, Sui and others

article-image

Momentum’s back — BTC leads, risk assets follow

article-image

Ondo Finance’s acquisition of blockchain development company Strangelove follows its buy of Oasis Pro

article-image

Cryptocurrency and stock traders alike had a lot to unpack Wednesday