Binance, a well-known cryptocurrency exchange has revealed misconduct involving a market maker associated with Movement (MOVE), which led to a decisive action by the exchange. The market maker, who is linked to GPS SHELL and Web3Port (also known as Whisper), dumped almost 66 million MOVE tokens on December 10, 2024, right after the token’s listing as per Wu Blockchain.
This large-scale sell-off occurred with a minimal buy-side support, allowing the entity to profit approximately $38 million USDT before its termination from Binance on March 18, 2025.
The abrupt token dump then raised concerns about market manipulation and unethical practices within the exchange. The exchange then responded by offboarding the market maker, freezing all the profits made and implemented stricter measures to protect users.
Movement Foundation Responds & $38M Buyback Plan
The Movement Network Foundation on the other hand, also took immediate action by terminating all partnership with the market maker and notified all other exchange about the misconduct.
Now that the damage was done, in order to gain and restore the confidence in MOVE ecosystem, the Foundation announced a $38 million buyback plan. This initiative is supposed to start on Binance and should last about three months from its commence. If this plan works out, it will restore the lost investor confidence and stabilize the token’s value.
This buyback program also indicates Foundation’s commitment to make sure that the community remains safe and it also indicates the fact that it addresses the damage that has been caused because of the market maker’s action.
GPS SHELL’s Controversial History
Upon further investigation, it was found out that this market maker is also tied to GPS SHELL, which has a history of misconduct. Rootdata shows that GPS SHELL’s investment portfolio includes projects such as Puffer, UXLINK, Bitlayer, and others. This revelation raises broader concerns about the ethical standards of entities operating within the cryptocurrency space.
Binance has reaffirmed that it is fully committed to make sure that a fair trading environment is maintained and that there are enhanced monitoring systems. It is also trying to make sure that stricture rules are implemented for such market makers.
Binance Insider Trading Incident
Separately, on March 23, 2025, a whistleblower claimed of insider trading by an employee. The staff used private information about the token listing to front-run trades for personal gain. After investigation, the employee has been suspended and the exchange is currently working at resolving the issue by implementing a 90-day token sale restriction for employees to curb insider trading.
Market Reaction
With both of these incidents being brought to light, one after another, this triggered a small reaction on the BNB token. The token experienced a slight dip of 0.6% in the past hour as the news broke but at press time, the price of the token stands at $638.42 with a surge of 1.3% in the last 24 hours as per CoinGecko. These incidents have also intensified regulatory scrutiny, raising concerns about compliance and ethical practices within the exchange.
Both of these incidents have exposed gaps in the exchange’s critical functions which include market making and data security. Even though Binance took swift actions against both these cases but in reality the exchange needs more frequent internal investigations and stricter controls to prevent such situations in the future.
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