Movement Labs Co-Founder Rushi Manche Takes Leave Amid Trading Scrutiny, MOVE Token Drops 12%

Movement Labs, the company behind the MOVE token, is currently facing turmoil as its co-founder, Rushi Manche, has reportedly gone on a brief leave amidst scrutiny over unusual trading activity involving the token. According to sources, Manche did not attend a recent company offsite and was briefly inactive on internal communication platforms, with his Slack account reportedly deactivated before being restored this week. While Manche has continued to post updates about Movement on social media, his absence from internal operations has raised questions within the community. One photo posted this week shows him at a conference, but the date of the event has not been verified. As of now, there has been no formal announcement from Movement Labs confirming his current role or responsibilities.

Ask Aime: What is the current status of Rushi Manche's role at Movement Labs following his brief leave?

The Movement Network Foundation has initiated an independent investigation into abnormal trading activity that took place in March. The investigation centers on a market maker that was removed by Binance after offloading around $38 million in MOVE tokens soon after the token launched. The exchange claimed to have notified both Movement Labs and the Foundation after detecting the trades, and said it froze a large portion of the profits for potential user compensation. The actions went against normal market maker behavior, but the entity involved was not publicly named by Binance.

In response to the unusual trading activity, the Foundation announced a buyback effort totaling 38 million USDT. This initiative is meant to support the MOVE token’s liquidity and bring stability to the market after the March trading events. At the time of the announcement, the Foundation stated that it had no prior knowledge of the trades and was cooperating fully with Binance and other parties. The MOVE token saw a drop of more than 12% and continued to fall, trading down 8.4% by press time.

Movement has previously faced scrutiny over early token distributions. In January, Manche responded to questions regarding MOVE purchases by a politically linked group ahead of the mainnet launch. He denied any wrongdoing and said the purchases were unrelated to insider knowledge. There has also been confusion around how to classify Movement. While it uses Ethereum as a base layer, the platform operates with the Move programming language developed for Meta’s Diem project. The team has distanced itself from the traditional Layer 2 label, which has added to the lack of clarity around its framework.

Neither Manche nor Movement Labs has issued further comments regarding the investigation or the leadership situation. The ongoing questions around project structure and transparency, coupled with the recent events, have left the community with many unanswered questions and concerns about the future of the MOVE token and Movement Labs.