Movement Labs has officially filed for bankruptcy

Movement Labs, the developer of the Movement blockchain, has filed for bankruptcy, ending a punishing stretch for the company over a market-making scandal involving its MOVE token.

MVMT Labs voluntarily filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware on July 15. The court record says the company has between 200 and 999 creditors, with $100,001 to $1 million in assets, and liabilities of up to $10 million.

The ousted co-founder, Rushi Manche, was listed among the largest creditors with claims of over $1.6 million.

MVMT Labs buried in a token launch controversy

MVMT Labs’ troubles began shortly after its mainnet and token launched in December 2024.

In March 2025, Binance identified that a MOVE market maker had dumped 66 million tokens following the launch, netting $38 million in profit. Binance consequently suspended the trading of MOVE, followed by Coinbase, Cryptopolitan reported.

A month after the Binance report, Movement formally began investigating whether it was misled into signing a market-making agreement with Rentech, which gave the market maker outsized control of 66 million MOVE tokens, or 5% of the supply.

Manche was ousted amid the controversy in May, as Cryptopolitan reported. The company announced that Movement, an Ethereum Layer 2 network, will continue under different leadership from a separate entity called Move Industries.

We confirm that Rushi Manche has been suspended from Movement Labs. This decision was made in light of ongoing events and as the third-party review is still being conducted by Groom Lake regarding organizational governance and recent incidents involving a market maker.

— Movement (@movement_xyz) May 2, 2025

Movement attempts to reinvent itself

MVMT Labs bankruptcy filing comes a month after the new company announced plans to rebrand Movement.

Movement Network is pivoting toward cross-border payments, remittances, and stablecoin settlement. Early in June, Move Industries said it had obtained access to licensed payment rails across the United States, Canada, and the European Union for “cross-border payments, remittances, and dollar savings products.”

The company also announced it repurchased about 19% of MOVE previously allocated to investors, which represents 4.2% of total supply, to reassure investors on the long-term mission of the project.

However, MOVE has yet to make a significant comeback from the dump.

At the time of writing, MOVE trades at $0.01064, down 94.17% over the past year.