MOVE drops 20% as Coinbase announces trading suspension on May 15

Coinbase announced on Thursday that it will suspend trading of the Movement token on May 15 at 2:00 p.m. ET, citing routine asset reviews to ensure that listing standards are met. 

The exchange said MOVE (MOVE) order books have already been switched to limit-only mode, meaning users can place or cancel limit orders, but trading at the market price is disabled.

MOVE’s price dropped roughly 20% following Coinbase’s announcement, falling from $0.25 to $0.20.

MOVE’s controversy

The decision comes amid controversy surrounding MOVE’s market activity and governance. In mid-April, the Movement Network was scrutinized after co-founder Cooper Scanlon took a leave of absence and reports surfaced of “market maker abnormalities.” 

Those abnormalities are now at the center of an investigation into a potential pump-and-dump scheme linked to a market maker called Web3Port.

Internal documents obtained by CoinDesk reveal that Web3Port, a China-based firm, was assigned over 5% of MOVE’s total token supply, which was then allegedly routed through an obscure entity called Rentech. 

This arrangement allowed Rentech to offload MOVE tokens if the project’s fully diluted value exceeded $5 billion—an event that reportedly occurred on December 9, the day MOVE launched on Binance.

On that day, Web3Port liquidated 66 million MOVE tokens, generating $38 million in sales and triggering a sharp price decline. Those same tokens are now worth about $15.7 million. Contracts reportedly split the profits from such sales 50/50 between Rentech and the Movement Foundation.

The Movement Foundation and Web3Port both have ties to World Liberty Financial Inc., a crypto venture backed by members of the Trump family. In January, WLFI purchased 3.42 million MOVE tokens for $1.5 million and also received a $10 million investment from Web3Port.

Coinbase has not directly cited the pump-and-dump allegations in its delisting rationale but reiterated that it regularly monitors assets for compliance with listing standards.