Binance Announces Malicious Token Dump by Move Market Maker
Binance released 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. Additionally, researcher Chen Jian noted that the market maker behind the MOVE dump is suspected to be Web3port, the same entity implicated in the prior malicious dumping of GPS and Shell tokens.
Background Information
On December 4, following the listing of the Web3 security infrastructure project GoPlus Security (GPS) on the Binance exchange, the price of GPS tokens continued to plummet, raising market suspicions of wrongdoing by the GPS market maker. Subsequently, on December 7, Binance officially announced that the sharp decline in GPS was due to a market maker dumping approximately 70 million tokens. In response to this incident, Binance took relevant actions, including delisting the market maker, prohibiting any market-making activities on the Binance platform, and confiscating all related profits.
Binance: MOVE Market Maker Maliciously Dumps $38 Million USDT
In this context, Binance released a new announcement this afternoon (25th) at 3 PM, indicating that a recent investigation found a connection between the market maker for the public chain Movement (MOVE) and another market maker recently blocked by Binance. The announcement included relevant evidence and measures:
We discovered that one of the market makers for the Movement (MOVE) project is related to another market maker that has been delisted and prohibited from engaging in any market-making activities on Binance due to regulatory violations. We found that this market maker engaged in the following market-making behaviors:
- On December 10, 2024 (UTC+8), the day after the MOVE token was listed, the market maker dumped approximately 66 million MOVE tokens, while the buy orders were minimal;
- 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 against this market maker’s misconduct:
- Notified the Movement Labs and Movement Foundation teams regarding 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 by Binance to ensure that market makers adhere strictly to the following principles and rules:
- Ensure that there are buy and sell orders supported by listings;
- Ensure adequate order size at designated depth levels;
- Provide healthy and stable market depth;
- Ensure that orders remain listed for a certain period to avoid high-frequency order cancellations disrupting the market.
Any project team-authorized market makers that do not comply with or violate these principles and rules will face further actions from Binance to better protect our users. Thank you for your long-standing support of Binance; we will continue to build a blockchain ecosystem in an open, transparent, and sustainable manner. Thank you for your support of Binance!
Movement Foundation: We Had No Knowledge
Following Binance’s announcement, the Movement Foundation urgently issued a statement indicating they were unaware of the market maker’s actions:
On March 11, Binance notified us that they were investigating a specific market maker involved with multiple tokens (including $MOVE). The Movement Network Foundation and Movement Labs were completely unaware of this matter. We chose to collaborate with this market maker because they had supported projects within the Movement ecosystem. When we discovered they were actually taking adverse actions against the ecosystem, we immediately took action.
Thanks to Binance, we learned that shortly after the MOVE token generation event (TGE) in December 2024, this market maker sold a large amount of MOVE tokens without completing meaningful buy orders. This was against our will, without our consent, 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 occurred, we cooperated with Binance to take action to recover the funds.
At the same time, the Movement Foundation responded with the following:
- Severed ties with the market maker: Upon learning of what happened, we cut all relationships with this market maker (including ecosystem partnerships).
- Notified other exchanges: We contacted other major exchanges to inform them of the ongoing investigation.
- Worked closely with Binance: Throughout the incident, we actively collaborated with Binance.
- Developed a repurchase plan: The Movement Network Foundation pledged to use the funds recovered from the market maker to repurchase $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 to return USDT liquidity to the Movement ecosystem.
To ensure transparency and commitment to the community, the purchase of MOVE using the recovered $38 million USDT will be conducted on Binance over the next three months. The purchased $MOVE will regularly be transferred to the Movement strategic reserve’s on-chain wallet: 0xA14C8e3eBb2Da43d027dC2c1b763387B9D59cACe.
Suspected Market Maker Behind the Dumping is Web3port
Additionally, cryptocurrency researcher and KOL Chen Jian stated on Twitter that after compiling various pieces of information, it can be confirmed that the market maker investigated and banned by Binance is Web3port. It is noteworthy that the malicious market makers behind GPS and Shell were also suspected to be Web3port:
After gathering various pieces of information, it can be confirmed that the recently punished market makers for Goplus, Myshell, and Movement are all the same Web3port. It is astonishing how such a market maker has the ability to continuously sign so many projects, and even more frightening is that they earned $38 million from just one project. Such profitability is too exaggerated… and this is only what has been exposed; how many projects and market makers have not been exposed? The entire crypto circle seems to be working for market makers. It feels like Binance is sharpening its knives against market makers, dealing with big players in a land grab.
$MOVE Rises
Following Binance’s announcement, the price of $MOVE was also stimulated, reported at $0.462 at press time, up over 7% in the past 24 hours.
