Binance Freezes Profits of MOVE Market Maker Over Misconduct

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has issued an announcement regarding the penalization of a market maker for the Movement (MOVE) project.

Binance has frozen the profits of the market maker and plans to redistribute the funds to compensate affected users.

Identity of the Penalized Market Maker for Movement

In its announcement, the exchange stated that the Movement market maker is linked to another market maker that had been removed from the platform for misconduct. This market maker has provided services for projects such as GoPlus Security (GPS) and MyShell (SHELL).

Market makers are financial institutions or individuals that facilitate the buying and selling of assets in a market by providing liquidity.

According to Binance, the MOVE market maker violated the exchange’s strict regulations. These regulations include maintaining large order sizes, ensuring stable bid-ask spreads, and avoiding manipulating the market through high-frequency trading activities.

On December 10, 2024, the market maker sold approximately 66 million MOVE tokens with minimal buy orders one day after the MOVE token launch, making a final profit of 38 million USDT. Binance then delisted the firm on March 18, 2025.

Binance did not disclose the name of this Movement market maker. However, some X users speculated that it could be Web3port.

“After gathering information from multiple sources, it is basically confirmed that the market makers for GoPlus, MyShell, and Movement, which were recently investigated by Binance, are all the same Web3port,” an X user commented.

Binance stated that it froze all profits generated by this market maker. The Movement Network Foundation and Movement Labs stated on their official website that they were unaware of the market maker’s misconduct. They explained that their reason for selecting this firm as a partner was its prior support for other projects within the Movement ecosystem.

However, the statement did not clarify whether they would terminate their relationship with this market maker in the future. Instead, they announced plans to use the funds recovered for a MOVE token buyback program.

“All cash proceeds recovered from the Market Maker will be used by the Movement Network Foundation to establish the Movement Strategic Reserve: a 38M $USDT buyback program to purchase $MOVE for long-term use and to return the USDT liquidity to the Movement ecosystem,” the announcement stated.

Moreover, another X user pointed out two other market makers with unusual activity. In a post, the user claimed that Flowdesk received 1.66 million MOVE tokens from the project team. These tokens were then deposited into exchanges such as Coinbase, OKX, and KuCoin.

Similarly, GSR Markets reportedly received 70 million MOVE tokens and transferred them to various exchanges. While there is no direct evidence that Flowdesk or GSR Markets violated any regulations, their involvement in the MOVE project has raised community concerns.

Despite the controversy, the MOVE token’s price increased nearly 7% in the past 24 hours, reaching $0.4597.