Movement Labs founder Rushi Manche has been suspended from his position and an investigation into his conduct is being conducted by Groom Lake

Movement Labs, the team behind the MOVE token and Movement Network, has suspended its co‑founder Rushi Manche and initiated an external investigation led by advisory firm Groom Lake into the project’s governance and its dealings with a market maker. According to Movement’s public statement, Manche’s suspension was decided “in light of ongoing events” while Groom Lake conducts a third‑party review of organizational governance and “recent incidents involving a market maker.” The move follows months of controversy around large‑scale token sales, abnormal trading activity, and questions over who controlled a significant portion of MOVE’s circulating supply. The backdrop is a market‑maker scandal dating back to December, when an entity linked to Movement’s liquidity arrangements allegedly sold around 66 million MOVE tokens, realizing roughly $38 million in USDT before major exchanges flagged the activity. Binance later identified irregular trading, froze associated funds, and notified the Movement Foundation and Movement Labs. Leaked agreements suggested the market maker, referred to as Rentech, held more than 5% of MOVE’s total supply with terms geared toward driving the token’s valuation sharply higher before exiting, raising concerns about internal controls and due diligence. The fallout has been severe: Coinbase announced it would delist MOVE after limited trading, citing listing‑standards issues, and the token has suffered steep price declines, with single‑day drops above 20% amid the governance crisis. To contain the damage, the Movement Foundation has cut ties with the implicated market maker and pledged a USDT buyback matching the frozen profits, but questions remain around the involvement or oversight of senior executives, including Manche. Groom Lake’s independent review is expected to assess whether Movement leadership was complicit in, negligent about, or misled over the token‑dump arrangements, and its findings are likely to be pivotal for the project’s regulatory exposure, market reputation, and future access to centralized‑exchange listings. Manche’s suspension, framed as a precautionary governance step pending the outcome of this probe, underscores the seriousness of the situation for a high‑profile L1/L2 infrastructure project navigating both investor backlash and heightened scrutiny of token‑market practices.

✨ AI-generated background, compiled from web sources — not editorial content.

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