Mantra (OM) and motion labs (move) tokens scandals are shaking with crypto market making

Two of the most chaotic token blowups of the year-movement labs’ move scandal and the collapse of Mantra’s OM-are sending shockwaves through the crypto-making businesses.

In both cases, fast price crashes revealed hidden actors, suspicious token unlocked, and alleged side agreements that have blinded market participants, with OM falling more than 90% within a few hours late April without a bright catalyst.

Unlike traditional finances, where market makers provide smooth bid-ask spreads in regulated areas, crypto market manufacturers often operate more like high-stake trading desks.

Not only did they quote prices; They negotirated pre-launch token allocations, receiving lockups, liquidity structures for centralized exchanges, and sometimes taking equity or advisory stakes.

The result is a sad space in which liquidity provision interferes with private deals, tokenomics, and often, insider politics.

A CoinDesk was exposed In late April showed how some executives of the labs movement had quarreled with their own market manufacturer to dump $ 38 million worth of transition to the open market.

Today, some companies are asking if they are too casual in trust in counterparts. How can you redeem a position when the token unlocking schedules are blurred? What happens when the handshake quietly overrides DAO measures?

“Our approach now includes a broader initial discussion and education sessions with project teams to ensure that they fully understand the mechanics of making the market,” the Hong Kong -making Division said CoinDesk’s market in a interview.

“Our deal structures have changed to emphasize long-term strategic alignment with short-term performance metrics, which include specific care against non-ethical behaviors such as excessive token dumping and artificial trading volume,” he said.

Behind the scenes, the conversations intensified. Deal terms will be evaluated more carefully. Some liquidity desks re -evaluate how they write the risk of the token.

Others demand more strict transparency – or walking away from sticky projects as a whole.

“Projects no longer accept prestigious reputations on face value, witnessing how even if established players can take advantage of shadow allocations or engage in harmful token sale skills,” Metalpha’s web3 ecosystem leader Max Sun. “The period of presumptive trust ended,” he said.

Under the glossy surfaces of token launch announcements and market-making agreements lies another crypto financial layer-the OTC’s second market, where locked tokens silently changes hands before the ongoing of the cliffs has hit the public.

These under-the-table deals, which often hurt between early supporters, funds, and syndicates, are now raising dynamic supplies and detection of skewing prices, some entrepreneurs say. And for market makers who are assigned to provide proper liquidity, it becomes more vague and dangerous variables.

“The second OTC market has changed the industry’s dynamics,” said Min Jung, analyst at Presto Research, which runs a market unit. “If you look at tokens with a weakening price action – such as $ layer, $ om, $ move, etc. – they are often the most actively exchanged in the second OTC market.”

“The entire supply and vesting schedule has become ugly due to these off-market deals, and for liquid funds, the real challenge is aware of whether the supply is actually unlocked,” Jung added.

In a market where the price is fiction and the supply is agreed on in the back rooms, the real risk is not volatility for traders – it believes that the float is what the whitepaper and founder say.

Read more: Lab movements are secretly promised by counselors million -million tokens, leak documents displayed