This week, as Trump's tariff trade trend improved, the market saw a massive general rise

This week, as Trump's tariff trade trend improved, the market saw a massive general rise, led by Ethereum ecology and AI

This week, as Trump's tariff trade trend improved, the market saw a massive general rise, led by Ethereum ecology and AI, all of which rose by more than 20%. At the same time, the crypto market was in turmoil again. Movement was accused of manipulating the market-making agreement, which led to the collapse of the coin price, involving operators such as Web3Port, which triggered the market to reflect on industry ethics and supervision. At the same time, AI and PayFi tracks accelerated their development, BNB Chain promoted the MCP standard, OKX and Binance laid out the payment ecology, and the policy trends indicated that the crypto market is facing a new round of reshuffles and opportunities.

1. Movement event - the crash caused by the market making protocol

This week, with Movement's trading being suspended by Coinbase and Binance's subsequent postponement of Movement (MOVE) HODLer airdrop, Movement was once again at the center of public opinion. The project raised more than 40 million yuan and was selected into the World Liberty Financial crypto investment portfolio supported by Trump.

Suspicion of manipulation is at the core of the Movement incident, involving a market-making agreement between Rentech and the Movement Foundation, which was accused of incentivizing price manipulation. According to CoinDesk, the contract between the Movement Foundation and Rentech handed over about half of the circulating MOVE tokens to Rentech for control, and the contract incentivized Rentech to push up the token valuation to $5 billion and then sell it for profit, resulting in 66 million tokens (worth $38 million) being sold on December 9, 2024, the day after the launch, and the price of the token plummeted.

Interestingly, after the sell-off, the Movement Network Foundation announced that it would repurchase 38 million USDT worth of MOVE on Binance in the next three months in an attempt to stabilize community sentiment, but a few days later it deposited 17.15 million MOVE into Coinbase.

Rentech’s role and contractual disputes:

Web3Port

Previously, CZ forwarded Kuai Dong (@_FORAB)’s disclosure article on market maker Web3Port, which stated:

May Liu, a core figure of Web3Port, and her team established a "brokerage pipeline for listing on Binance”, from Spark Digital Capital to Web3Port, and then to Whisper.

Initially, Spark operated under the name of VC, but actually relied on market outsourcing + FA business, allowing VC to invest in projects and obtaining free tokens. After the industry involution in 2021 and 2022, project parties were no longer willing to give tokens for free, so they turned to the incubator model and established Web3Port, providing project packaging and VC docking in exchange for 1-3% tokens.

However, the incubator alone could not realize the funds, so the market maker Whisper was established. In the name of market making, it actually created a delivery window for the free tokens in its hands. In the end, this system became a complete assembly line from packaging financing to exit, and Binance retail investors became the final payers.

What is even more shocking is that Web3Port signed a similar agreement with Rentech as early as November 25, 2024, bypassing the Foundation's review. Rentech was marked as a representative of "Movement" in the document. This shows that key arrangements have been implemented in advance in informal channels, laying the groundwork for the subsequent thunderbolt.

In addition, cryptocurrencies are usually supposed to have a lock-up period to prevent early selling. However, in the Movement incident, Web3Port obtained tokens through the protocol and immediately sold them, which became the core issue of outside doubts about insider trading.

After the incident broke out, Movement Labs, market makers Rentech/Web3Port, co-founders and founders blamed each other. Movement claimed that it was misled by Rentech and Web3Port, while Rentech insisted that the agreement was approved by Movement. At present, the project has commissioned the Groom Lake audit agency to investigate the market making anomalies, and many executives and legal advisors have been reviewed. The credibility and governance of the project have been seriously challenged, and the price performance of Move is not optimistic in the future.

This incident exposed in detail for the first time the lack of supervision of the market-making mechanism and the dark areas of the opaque legal framework, but it is worth considering that the movement incident may be just the tip of the iceberg in the dark areas. In theory, market makers are entrusted by the project party to provide liquidity for new tokens and maintain price stability and market depth through buying and selling operations. However, in actual operations, if there is a lack of supervision or transparent mechanisms , market makers may be abused as a tool to manipulate the market and secretly transfer a large number of tokens, which will damage the rights and interests of ordinary investors