Crypto Pump & Dumps Have Become the Ugly Norm. Can They Be Stopped? - Ep. 834

The Movement Labs scandal exposed more than just one bad deal –  it pulled back the curtain on a widespread problem in crypto: how some market makers, founders, and VCs play games to make money — whether the project succeeds or not.

In this episode, Laura speaks with José Macedo of Delphi Labs, Omar Shakeeb of SecondLane, and Taran Sabharwal of STIX to explain:

How market makers are supposed to work, and how they operate in crypto

Why insider selling is more common than you think

How projects like Movement, Mantra, and others exploit launch day hype

Whether VCs often enable this behavior with side deals that retail never hears about

And what the industry needs to do to fix this broken system

Visit our website for breaking news, analysis, op-eds, articles to learn about crypto, and much more: unchainedcrypto.com

Bitwise

José Macedo, founder at Delphi Labs

Omar Shakeeb, cofounder of SecondLane

Taran Sabharwal, founder and CEO of STIX.

Movement Labs:

Unchained: How MOVE’s Contracts Put a Pump and Dump Into a Legal Agreement

CoinDesk: Inside Movement’s Token-Dump Scandal: Secret Contracts, Shadow Advisers and Hidden Middlemen

Market making:

The Chopping Block: Can Crypto Clean Itself Up? Market Structure, Trust, and Regulation

Mantra Founder Is Burning 150 Million Tokens. Would He Try to Get Them Returned?

ZachXBT Ties REEF Founders to OM Token Crash

Timestamps:

👋 0:00 Intro

🤝 1:51 What Omar’s and Taran’s companies do

🎭 3:40 How market making works and how crypto twists the model

⚠️ 9:35 Why crypto’s market maker incentives are broken by design

🛠️ 16:25 What it would take to fix shady market maker behavior

🚩 26:20 How some founders exploit launch day hype to dump on retail

🧠 38:11 Did Mantra’s JP pull off a “genius” move or manipulate the market?

🔍 42:22 Whether crypto traders do any research before apeing in

💸 52:48 How founders are incentivized to dump their own tokens

🏦 59:09 Why VCs may be fueling this problem with insider deals

📉 1:02:37 What crypto needs to learn from traditional finance

✅ 1:06:13 The biggest fixes the industry must prioritize to stop these scams

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