Is Your Crypto Co-founder About to Be Fired? Movement Labs Drama Exposes All—Don’t Look Away!

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Well, this is awkward. Movement Labs has officially “terminated” its co-founder, Rushi Manche, because he decided to spice up his resume with a controversial market maker deal. Ah, brokering deals—the quickest way to a pink slip.

The big reveal hit X (yes, Twitter, we’re still doing that) on May 7. “Terminated Rushi Manche,” the post read, like a corporate breakup text. Apparently, a new leadership is sliding into the DMs and there’ll be “governance changes.” That’s code for “Things are on fire, but please keep holding our token.”

To catch you up: Manche was suspended earlier for reasons described as “ongoing events.” Insert dramatic music here. Not to be outdone, Coinbase recently put the Movement Network MOVE token in time out for not playing by the rules.

Movement Labs 2.0: New Name, Same Baggage 🧳

The saga continues! Movement Labs, not content with one identity crisis, just launched Move Industries, now starring Torab Torabi as CEO and Will Gaines as CMO. “We needed a clean break,” they said—an announcement that comes off less “fresh start” and more “please forget everything that just happened.”

Promises are flying: governance, transparency, better vetting. They even dusted off phrases like “radical crypto roots” and “evolved leadership philosophy”—guaranteed to make at least one VC nod solemnly while falling asleep.

Market Makers: The Villains in Your Crypto Origin Story 🦸‍♂️🦹‍♀️

If you blinked, here’s the tea: Manche cooked up a deal with Rentech, who brought in Web3Port as a market maker. Web3Port then performed the digital equivalent of dumping all your ex’s clothes out the window—selling 66 million MOVE tokens (5% of the supply). $38 million gone like my self-discipline on a Sunday.

As for accountability, the private intelligence firm Groom Lake is on the case. Its founder, Fernando Reyes Jr., is keeping lips zipped tighter than crypto Twitter post-crash. But he did reference Byzantine Emperor Basil II—because apparently we’re cosplaying as medieval kings now. He promised:

“I will soon do what he did to a large swath of scammers in this industry. I will break them.“

If this were an HBO show, this is the episode where everyone gets poisoned at the banquet.

The Market Maker Industrial Complex

Turns out, the right market maker is like the right foundation for your house—or your hair. Too much, and things get voluminous in all the wrong ways. In April, analysts declared that a market maker could rocket a new token skyward or torpedo it into irrelevance faster than you can say “rug pull.”

And what horror stories we have! Summer 2024: up to 78% of token listings in the “Total Disaster” category. Market makers lurking about, accused repeatedly of—wait for it—evil market wizardry (a.k.a. unsavory practices).

Case studies (or crime blotter?): Celsius creditors pointing the finger at Wintermute for jazz-handing the Celsius token’s trading volume (that’s “wash trading” if you prefer jargon). Fracture Labs sued Jump Crypto after alleged pump-and-dump shenanigans with in-game currency DIO. Allegedly, DWF Labs and Binance tried to break a $300 million market manipulation world record. Both parties, of course, deny everything—probably while wearing sunglasses indoors.

And for the punchline: US regulators created a completely fake digital asset just to bait market makers into being naughty. Spoiler: CLS Global fell for it and got fined in Massachusetts. At this rate, the SEC’s next move will be full-blown hidden cameras at CryptoCon.

Everything’s a mess, nobody trusts anyone, and the phrase “governance changes” is doing more heavy lifting than an underpaid intern. Welcome to crypto, darling. Just try not to get fired—or at least, not publicly.

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2025-05-07 10:49