The price of MOVE spiked Tuesday to $0.89, notching notable gains after World Liberty Financial—a DeFi platform affiliated with President Donald Trump and members of his family—purchased $1.9 million worth of the utility token for the Ethereum layer-2 network Movement.
Despite retracing slightly, the token is up 7% on the day to $0.77, CoinGecko data shows.
That was enough for MOVE to lead the crypto market among the top 100 tokens tracked by CoinGecko, outpacing XDC Network’s (XDC) 7% climb.
The MOVE purchases were made by World Liberty Financial, which counts Trump and several of his children as advisors, on Tuesday morning, according to on-chain data visible via Arkham Intelligence’s blockchain analytics platform.
Ethereum Layer-2 Network Movement Launches MOVE Token With $830 Million Airdrop
The Movement Network Foundation launched MOVE—the utility token of the Ethereum layer-2 network Movement—on Monday, offering up more than $830 million worth of MOVE tokens to early users to claim, based on peak value. Dubbed the “MoveDrop,” the airdrop provided 1 billion MOVE, or 10% of the total token supply to eligible communities and participants that had completed transactions and quests on the Movement testnet. An additional 1.25 billion tokens or 12.5% was also unlocked for the Movement N...
The Trump-linked DeFi project’s purchases followed a spending spree last week, in which World Liberty Financial scooped up $47 million worth of wrapped Bitcoin amid Trump’s inauguration.
The development caught Movement Labs co-founder Rushi Manche completely off guard. He told Decrypt that Movement Labs had no involvement in the Trump-linked DeFi project’s purchases whatsoever, with its team “focused mostly on the Developer Mainnet Launch.”
The Movement Network Foundation, which launched MOVE in December, announced on X that Movement’s developer mainnet had gone live—allowing developers to begin deploying applications on the Ethereum layer-2 network.
While Manche said he knew little about World Liberty Financial’s thinking, he interpreted the purchases as “showing a vote of confidence in MOVE and Ethereum’s ecosystem.”
World Liberty Financial Adds $47 Million in Wrapped Bitcoin Amid Trump Inauguration
World Liberty Financial, a DeFi platform affiliated with President Donald Trump and members of his family, added approximately 439 Wrapped Bitcoin—or about $47 million worth at the time of purchase—to its balance amid the inauguration Monday. The platform, which counts Trump and multiple children among its advisors, made 10 separate transactions, swapping nearely $47 million worth of stablecoins for Wrapped Bitcoin or WBTC—an Ethereum token that is redeemable 1:1 for Bitcoin. WLF now holds 456....
Eric Conner, founder of the Ethereum information site ETHHub, was among skeptics on Crypto Twitter who scrutinized the timing of World Liberty Financial’s purchases.
In a post on X, he said it was “not a good look” that the purchases took place just minutes before influential accounts like *Walter Bloomberg and db claimed that Movement Labs was in talks with the government.
Both accounts asserted that Movement Labs was in talks with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) about possibly implementing blockchain technology.
According to a Bloomberg report from last week, individuals involved in Musk’s cost-reduction initiative were evaluating the application of a public blockchain to enhance transparency in government spending.
Elon Musk's DOGE Exploring Blockchain for Government Efficiency: Bloomberg
The Department of Government Efficiency, the cost-cutting initiative led by billionaire Elon Musk, is reportedly considering the use of a public blockchain to bring transparency and other potential benefits to government operations and spending. That's according to Bloomberg, which reported Saturday that Musk's DOGE agency is holding conversations with representatives from multiple existing public blockchains, according to sources close to the conversations. No specific chains are mentioned in t...
Sanche said he could not confirm the rumor that moved markets, adding that Movement Labs has not had any communication with the DOGE—as far as he’s aware.
As a layer-2 network built on Ethereum, Movement seeks to offer users faster and cheaper transactions than its underlying blockchain. But as far as Ethereum scaling solutions go, Movement’s design is novel compared to an ever-growing list of options.
Movement was built using a programming language called Move, pioneered by the developers of Facebook’s defunct stablecoin project Diem. Those endeavors eventually led to the creation of Aptos and Sui, which also use Move but operate as standalone networks.
Edited by Sebastian Sinclair
