Original author | Decrypt
Compiled by | Odaily Planet Daily Nan Zhi
On May 13, Roaring Kitty reappeared in the public eye.
When he returned to Twitter (X platform), he didn’t even directly mention GameStop (GME), a stock whose roller coaster ride had attracted global attention and was made into a documentary. But his return still led to a short-term doubling of GME’s share price and a 1,900% surge in the price of Solana’s eponymous meme token GME.
Roaring Kitty's real name is Keith Gill. What is the connection between him, bankrupt video game retailer GME and Meme Coin?
Gill is the protagonist of the 2023 movie "Dumb Money", which tells the story of the 2021 GameStop short squeeze. Gill's analysis and promotion of GameStop that year largely triggered the fire that swept Wall Street in 2021 and led to his testimony on Capitol Hill.
He announced his return with a tweet, his first in 150 weeks, which may bring another storm in the crypto and traditional investment circles.
Who is Roaring Kitty?
Before he made a splash in the financial world as Roaring Kitty (or DeepFuckingValue on Reddit), Gill dreamed of becoming a track star, according to the Wall Street Journal. Gill's first attempt at creating content on YouTube was posting a 4:33 mile run.
Although his dream of playing track and field was not realized due to injuries, Gill turned his attention to the stock market. In 2019, Gill became the director of financial wellness at life insurance company MassMutual. In the same year, he joined Reddit and began posting on the WallStreetsBets subreddit.
Gill is widely known for his role in the GameStop stock short squeeze that occurred on January 27, 2021. On Reddit, he has gained a large following for investing in GameStop stock, promoting the asset on social media, and his Roaring Kitty YouTube channel.
“FYI, prices are going up in March and GME continues to outperform the market on a relative basis,” Gill wrote in a 2020 Reddit post.
The stage is set.
GameStop
At the time, the game retailer was in financial trouble, and many institutional investors and hedge funds believed that GME stock was overvalued and shorted GameStop stock.
At the time, one GME share was worth about $5.16. Before GameStop's stock surged, its share price was well below its previous all-time high.
Users on the r/WallStreetBets subforum, including Gill, noticed the growing number of short positions in GME and smelled an opportunity to trigger a short squeeze, a term used to describe a sharp rise in the price of an asset that forces traders who are “short” to be liquidated.
Although Gill did not single-handedly trigger the GameStop short squeeze, he was an important figure in the debate and was the first to go against the mainstream view and determine that GameStop was undervalued.
“People talk about GameStop’s decline, but they’re going to do $2 billion in a quarter at the end of a console run, and the ‘digital transformation’ rhetoric is overhyped,” Gill, writing on Reddit as DeepFuckingValue, said. “There’s still potential for this business model to grow, and the new consoles will be a significant driver.”
As GME shares rose, several firms that bet on GameStop's decline were forced to close their positions, notably Melvin Capital, which lost nearly $3 billion shorting GameStop.
On January 28, the day after the GameStop short squeeze and a day of historic gains, Robinhood, the preferred platform for retail investors, was hit with two lawsuits after it blocked customers from buying more GameStop shares. When Robinhood blocked the purchase of GameStop, the stock price had reached $492, but soon fell to $193.
GME Aftermath
On February 18, 2021, Gill was summoned to testify before the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee. Also attending the hearing with him were the CEOs of Robinhood and multinational hedge fund Citadel.
Gill said at the hearing: "It is true that my investment in that company has increased in value many times. I feel very fortunate for this. I also believe that the current stock price proves that my view of the company is correct. I have no clients and do not provide personalized investment advice for fees or commissions. I am just an individual investor, and my investment in GameStop and social media content are based on my own research and analysis."
To dispel misunderstandings about his identity, Gill also told lawmakers that he is neither an institutional investor nor a hedge fund. The idea that he could use social media to drive GameStop stock and influence the market is absurd.
Gill's last post on Reddit was dated April 16, 2021. He quietly quit social media on June 18, 2021, and last posted a video of a sleeping cat on the X platform.
GameStop has tried to use the public's attention to develop its business, and even entered the field of cryptocurrency and NFT. However, the company's cryptocurrency business did not go far. In August 2023, GameStop closed its NFT wallet business due to regulatory uncertainty, and closed its NFT market in January of this year.
The GameStop short squeeze and Roaring Kitty’s role in it became the centerpiece of a documentary and a movie. In September 2022, Netflix released the miniseries “Eat the Rich: The GameStop Saga,” followed by the feature film “Dumb Money” in 2023.
return
The news of Roaring Kitty's return has once again caused a storm on social media.
For example, meme stock pioneer and social media celebrity Andrew Tate will sell $500,000 worth of Bitcoin to join the latest GameStop short squeeze.
Top crypto influencer VAnsem responds to Roaring Kitty tweet: “Hey bro, what we buying?”
Even Barstool Sports founder David Portnoy was ready to get in on the action, quoting a line from The Godfather: Part III: “You wanna go crazy? Go crazy! Every time I thought I quit, they pulled me back in.”
It is unclear why Gill chose to return to Platform X, or if he actually returned. His Reddit and YouTube accounts are currently inactive, with only a dozen video clips posted since the first return tweet, and he has not yet responded to Decrypt's request for comment.
But his apparent reappearance clearly stirred the GameStop crowd, sparking a meme flood on Solana and roiling the broader meme market, which included DOGE, SHIB, and PEPE rising 5.7%, 5.0%, and 15.4%, respectively.
The meme tokens on Solana also experienced a surge, led by GME and KITTY, with recent market caps of $100 million and $30 million, respectively, both rising more than tenfold yesterday. Other GME-related memes also rose to varying degrees, and the concept even expanded to GME liquidation institutions such as Melvin Capital,
This was all sparked by a series of video posts, and if Gill, or whoever currently controls the @TheRoaringKitty X account, starts tweeting explicitly about stocks or cryptocurrencies, the market could very well be set off again.
