Superficial victory, deep water undercurrents: The Movement turmoil is not yet over
Fairness and transparency remain the most important cornerstones of the cryptocurrency industry.Author: Scof, ChainCatcher
Yesterday, the most discussed topic in the crypto industry was undoubtedly the victory achieved by the Movement community in defending their rights.
According to Binance's official announcement, Binance has terminated its partnership with the market maker web3port for Movement and has prohibited it from continuing market-making activities on the platform. This market maker sold a large amount of tokens the day after MOVE was launched, causing market volatility and earning approximately 38 million USDT in net profit through this action. To protect user interests, Binance has notified the Movement team and frozen the earnings of this market maker, which are planned to be used for subsequent user compensation.
In response, community members expressed, "As long as the community is united, the torch can illuminate the darkness."
However, despite this rights protection being a significant victory, there are still many doubts behind it, with numerous unsolved mysteries waiting to be uncovered.
Starting from Community Controversies
Recently, crypto KOL Ice Frog published an article titled "Seven Questions for Movement: In the Face of Facts, Please Respond to Community Concerns," revealing multiple issues with Movement and sparking widespread attention.
According to Rootdata, Movement is a modular framework compatible with Solidity, used to build and deploy infrastructure, applications, etc., based on the Move programming language in any distributed environment.
Initially, the $MOVE token airdrop allocation plan attracted significant community attention, promising to allocate 50%-60% of the tokens to the community. However, in practice, the airdrop window was too short, the distribution ratio was far below expectations, and the rules were complex and opaque, leading to disappointment among many participants.
Data shows that 98.5% of addresses received fewer than 100 tokens, while some addresses received as many as 490,000 tokens, raising community concerns about the fairness of the distribution.
Many believe that the project's airdrop was intended to create a "wealth illusion," profiting from selling after driving up the token price, collecting high Gas fees, and even locking up some tokens, resulting in user assets being illiquid. This practice contradicts the original "community first" philosophy and has been criticized as "harvesting retail investors."
Additionally, according to crypto KOL @cryptobraveHQ, the market maker for $Move on the surface is GSR, but the actual market maker is a shadow market maker based in Singapore, which is well-funded and has repeatedly been blacklisted by Binance while continuously changing its identity to market multiple Binance projects.
In summary, the main issues of community rights protection focus on three points:
- After the TGE launch, the airdrop window was too short, and the claim link went offline after the Gas war, preventing most retail investors from claiming the airdrop. The project party boosted reputation and token price through fast-tracking and trading platform users, while engaging in wash trading to cash out.
- The project party repeatedly PUA'd users to wait until the mainnet launch to claim the airdrop while continuing to drive up the token price and cashing out through large OTC sales.
- Users who cross-chain into the Movement mainnet to claim the airdrop were unable to transfer their assets back, resulting in illiquid assets.
A Phase Victory for Community Rights Protection?
After Binance terminated its cooperation with the market maker, the Movement Network Foundation stated that they were completely unaware of this situation. The reason for choosing to cooperate with this market maker was that they had previously supported projects within the Movement ecosystem. Currently, the foundation has severed all ties with this market maker (including ecosystem partnerships) and has contacted other major exchanges to inform them of the ongoing investigation.
Throughout the event, the Movement Network Foundation actively cooperated with Binance and promised to use the funds recovered from MM to repurchase $MOVE on the open market.
Still Clouded with Doubts
Although Binance took corresponding measures to punish the project party in the Move incident, and the community achieved a phase victory, the entire event remains shrouded in uncertainty:
For example, the project experienced a unilateral sell-off of tens of millions of dollars last December. How could Binance, as a trading platform, not have noticed this? If it was indeed an operational error, why was there no immediate corrective action taken, and why was it only disclosed four months later?
From another perspective, if the violations were indeed caused by the market maker, why did the project party not take legal action to hold them accountable? If the market maker bore full responsibility, why did it not proactively defend itself or provide relevant explanations? These unresolved questions still require further investigation and urgent transparent responses from both within and outside the industry.
Only when the tide recedes can we see clearly who has been swimming naked.
Although this incident achieved a phase victory, the underlying questions remain unanswered. Protecting the interests of retail investors and ensuring fairness and transparency in the crypto market have always been two unresolved clouds hanging over Web3. Only by thoroughly uncovering the truth can trust in the market be restored, and the ideals of Web3 no longer be mere talk.
