Movement Labs Denies Insider Trading Allegations Involving Trump Family
Date: 2025-01-29 Author: Oliver Abernathy Categories: BUSINESS
According to Arkham Research, on January 28 at around 14:00 UTC, World Liberty Financial purchased MOVE tokens via CoW Swap. The purchase was made just two hours before the official announcement of the Movement Network for developers. As a result, MOVE tokens became the tenth-largest asset on the balance sheet of the Trump family-backed project.
However, Rushi Munsch said that he only learned about the deal the following day, as the team was focused on the mainnet announcement. He emphasized that Movement Labs had no direct contact with World Liberty Financial and did not coordinate the token purchase.
"We're not involved. We'd like to see MOVE as part of the system, but it's not coordinated," Munsch said.
However, skeptical observers have raised concerns about insider trading by the Trump family. Eric Conner, a former Ethereum developer, expressed doubts, noting that the MOVE token purchase coincided with the publication of information about a conversation between Movement and Elon Musk.
It is unclear whether World Liberty Financial had access to the non-public information. However, on-chain data suggests that traders may have been expecting the announcement. For example, open interest in MOVE on Binance increased from $25 million to $100 million between 8:30 AM ET and the news release.
In response to the allegations, Munsch said that Movement Labs did not provide tokens to the Trump project and that the mainnet launch for developers was not part of the pre-released roadmap.
"We were just hinting that there would be something interesting this week, but we weren't expecting this kind of excitement," he explained.
In addition, the media reported that the Department of Government Effectiveness (DOGE), headed by Elon Musk, was allegedly considering using the Movement blockchain. Munch denied these rumors, saying that the Movement Labs team has not been in talks with Musk or DOGE.
The public launch of the Movement mainnet is scheduled for mid-February, when the MOVE token will be used to pay for network fees.
According to Munch, the project is close to completing a Series B funding round that will raise $100 million and increase the value of Movement Labs to $300 billion.
For the record, World Liberty Financial was introduced by the Trump family in September 2024, and Trump himself is referred to in the project's gold paper as "chief crypto advocate."
