Movement Unlocks 164.58m Tokens Today As Move Trades 98% Below Ath

164.58M Tokens Released to Early Backers

Movement (@movementlabsxyz) released 164.58 million $MOVE tokens to early backers on May 9, worth approximately $2.99 million at current prices and equal to 1.6% of the total token supply. The unlock releases tokens across multiple stakeholder groups as part of a scheduled vesting event.

Movement uses cliff vesting, especially for ecosystem and community allocations, meaning tokens are released all at once after a set waiting period, creating a delayed but significant supply event. Unlock events of a similar size are scheduled to continue each month through at least September 2026, with the next cliff set for June 9.

$MOVE has a maximum supply of 10 billion tokens. The allocation breakdown includes early backers at 22.50%, ecosystem and community at 40.00%, early contributors at 17.50%, the foundation at 10.00%, and initial claims at 10.00%.

A Token Under Pressure From Every Angle

The unlock arrives at a difficult moment for the token. $MOVE hit an all-time high of $1.20 on December 26, 2024, and is currently down 98.4% from that peak. The live price sits at roughly $0.018, with a 24-hour trading volume of approximately $13.2 million. Circulating supply stands at 3.67 billion tokens against a maximum of 10 billion, with a market cap of around $69 million.

The holder picture is equally stark. Only around 1.127% of holder addresses are currently in profit, meaning over 98% are sitting on losses. This creates a wall of potential selling pressure, as any price increase incentivizes long-term holders to exit.

The project has also been dealing with fallout from a market-making scandal. Movement Labs investigated whether it was misled into signing a market-making agreement that granted an obscure middleman control over 66 million $MOVE tokens, triggering a $38 million selloff after the token's debut. In response, the Movement Network Foundation committed to a $38 million USDT buyback program using funds recovered from the banned market maker, with purchases scheduled on Binance over three months.

On the development side, Movement Labs has transitioned from an Ethereum Layer 2 solution to launching its own Layer 1 blockchain, a move driven by the need to overcome scalability limitations. Whether that shift is enough to change the supply-side dynamic remains the central question hanging over each monthly unlock.

Sources:
Movement ($MOVE) Price and Market Data, CoinGecko
Movement Tokenomics and Vesting Schedule, Tokenomist
Inside Movement's Token-Dump Scandal, CoinDesk