South Korean watchdog probes Coinone after MOVE price soared x46k times: report

South Korea’s financial watchdog is investigating crypto exchange Coinone over Movement’s sharp price swings, raising concerns about potential unfair trading.

According to a report by Korean news outlet MTN, a major investigation is underway into Korean crypto exchange Coinone following a sudden and extreme fluctuation in the price of Movement (MOVE) token.

The report states that the Financial Supervisory Service, which is responsible for the supervision and regulation of financial institutions, is investigating whether there were any unfair transactions at Coinone when the MOVE price rose 46,000 times before falling rapidly.

On December 9, the Motion Network Foundation announced the token creation event of MOVE, a token developed by Facebook’s blockchain division for the Diem project (formerly Libra), built on the Motion blockchain and written in the Move programming language.

MTN claims that on the same day, Movement’s price rose from 215.3 won (about $0.15) to 998,500 won ($697) on Coinone within a few minutes, before falling to 5,300 won shortly thereafter. Now the FSS is checking whether the exchange followed the correct procedures during this event and whether there were any unusual transactions.

FSS is also examining how exactly Coinone listed Movement, as it began trading earlier than other Korean crypto exchanges such as Upbit and Bithumb, raising questions about how the listing process was handled.