Movement Network Foundation Launches 38M USDT Buyback After Market Maker Controversy

By Carina W.

Movement Network Foundation has officially announced a 38M USDT buyback program for its native MOVE token following a Binance investigation that revealed improper trading activities by a contracted market maker.

The investigation, disclosed to Movement Network Foundation on March 11, found that the market maker had been selling substantial amounts of MOVE tokens without placing corresponding buy orders shortly after the token's generation event (TGE) in December 2024.

"Movement Network Foundation and Movement Labs had absolutely no knowledge that this was happening," the foundation stated in an official announcement on March 24. "We chose to work with this market maker as they had already supported projects in the Movement ecosystem."

The market maker's actions directly violated their contractual agreement, which required providing liquidity on both sides of the MOVE/USDT trading pair.

In response to the findings, the foundation took immediate action:

• Cut all ties with the market maker, including ending ecosystem partnerships

• Notified other major exchanges about the ongoing investigation

• Worked closely with Binance throughout the process

• Successfully recovered 38M USDT from the market maker

The recovered funds will be used to establish the "Movement Strategic Reserve" - a buyback initiative that will purchase MOVE tokens from the open market for long-term ecosystem development.

"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 explained.

The buyback operations will be conducted exclusively on Binance over the next three months, with purchased tokens periodically transferred to the project's on-chain wallet (0xA14C8e3eBb2Da43d027dC2c1b763387B9D59cACe) for complete transparency.

The foundation expressed gratitude to Binance for their thorough investigation and reassured community members that "The Movement Network remains secure and strong" despite the incident.

Movement Network Foundation has committed to providing regular updates as the buyback initiative progresses.