Movement, backed by Trump's World Liberty Financial, says it was duped into an agreement that experts say incentivized price manipulation.

Movement Labs, the team behind the MOVE token and backed by Trump‑affiliated World Liberty Financial (WLFI), is embroiled in a dispute over a market‑making arrangement that critics say structurally encouraged price manipulation and a post‑listing token dump. According to documents and commentary reported in crypto media, Movement says it was misled into signing an agreement that effectively loaned a large portion of MOVE’s circulating supply to a single counterparty, Rentech, under the belief it was tied to designated market maker Web3Port, an arrangement that external experts have described as one of the most problematic token‑liquidity contracts they have seen. The controversy centers on events immediately after MOVE’s exchange debut, when about 66 million MOVE tokens—over 5% of the supply allocated for market making—were rapidly sold into the market, triggering a sharp price drop and allegations of insider trading and market abuse. Movement executives say tokens earmarked for Web3Port were routed through Rentech, which they believed to be a Web3Port subsidiary; Rentech denies misrepresentation. Contract terms reportedly gave this single counterparty control over roughly half the public float, creating strong incentives to first support or “pump” the price and then dump tokens on retail buyers for shared profit, a structure that one outside crypto founder, Zaki Manian, publicly criticized after reviewing the agreements. Wallets linked to Web3Port then liquidated around $38 million in MOVE shortly after launch, prompting Binance to ban the relevant market‑making account for “misconduct” and pushing the Movement Foundation to announce a $38 million token buyback to stabilize liquidity and restore confidence. The fallout has exposed internal governance tensions at Movement: co‑founder Rushi Manche, who initially introduced the Rentech deal, and advisor Sam Thapaliya, a business partner of a key Rentech figure (Law‑Kun), are under internal review amid questions about why the foundation approved what some insiders called “possibly the worst agreement” they had ever seen. The project says it has hired an external intelligence firm to investigate the episode and plans to publish findings, while WLFI’s backing has drawn additional attention given that Trump‑linked World Liberty Financial itself has been under scrutiny for its own token‑sale and governance practices in the broader crypto market. "entities":["Movement Labs","Movement Foundation","MOVE","World Liberty Financial","WLFI","Donald Trump","Trump family","Web3Port","Rentech","Binance","Cooper Scanlon","Rushi Manche","Sam Thapaliya","Law-Kun","Zaki Manian"]}`

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