MOVE Jumps 20% on Trump-Linked World Liberty Fi Token Purchase, Musk's DOGE Involvement

The native token of Movement, an Ethereum layer-2 network built using the Facebook-created MoveVM coding language, jumped on Tuesday after Donald Trump-backed World Liberty Financial purchased tokens. There was also a fresh report that Movement is among the blockchain networks in discussions with the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

The MOVE token spiked as much as 20% to $0.89 on the news before paring some of the gains, still up 13% during the day at press time.

"Our papers have never hit the DOGE desk," Rushi Manche, co-founder of Movement Labs, told CoinDesk. "Our growth team has never met them, so there's a lot of speculation in the rumors."

However, "in the next few months, it's the people and blockchain firms that are able to be part of the government — be part of this new political movement — that are the ones that'll win in five years," he added.

The rumors started swirling just after World Liberty Financial, which is backed by President Donald Trump and his family, acquired a total of $2 million worth of MOVE tokens in several batches during the U.S. morning hours, with the first transaction occurring at 14:22 UTC, blockchain data by Arkham Intelligence shows.

The gains happened as an X post by well-followed crypto sleuth dbnews at 14:48 UTC reported that Movement is involved in discussions to bring blockchain technology to the government. Elon Musk, the tech entrepreneur who heads the Department of Government Efficiency and is tasked with finding ways to cut government expenses, is reportedly exploring blockchain tech for operations, including tracking federal spending, securing data, making payments and managing buildings.

Bloomberg reported last week that DOGE representatives have reportedly held conversations with leaders from several public blockchains.

"We are proud to be the first altcoin, first modern blockchain platform, and first alternative vm under the new administration," Manche said in an X post. "MOVE is Made in America."

Just minutes before MOVE price's rally accelerated on the second headline, open interest for the token spiked to near 55 million contracts from around 44 million on Coinbase, which means traders initiated derivatives positions en masse ahead of the move, well-followed pseudonymous crypto trader TheFlowHorse pointed out in an X post.

The chain of events raised some eyebrows among the crypto community, with several market participants alleging potential insider trading or grifting.

Manche stated that the Movement Foundation, the development organization supporting the network, did not send tokens to anyone including World Liberty Financial.

"There weren't any deals — any back door deals. It was purely just market buying," Manche told CoinDesk.

Read more: Movement Labs Unveils Developer Mainnet Ahead of February's Public Launch

UPDATE (Jan. 28, 17:28 UTC): Adds market data, context about industry backlash.

UPDATE (Jan. 28, 18:20 UTC): Adds comments from an interview with Rushi Manche.