Original Author: Decrypt

Compiled by: Odaily Planet Daily Nan Zhi

On May 13th, Roaring Kitty appeared in the public eye once again.

When he returned to Twitter (X platform), he didn't even directly mention GameStop (GME), the stock's roller-coaster market once attracted global attention and was made into a documentary. But his return still caused a short-term doubling of GME's stock price and led to a 1900% surge in the price of the meme token GME on Solana.

Roaring Kitty, whose real name is Keith Gill, what is his connection with the bankrupt video game retailer GME and the meme coin?

Gill is the protagonist of the 2023 movie "Dumb Money," which tells the story of the 2021 GameStop short squeeze event. Gill's analysis and promotion of GameStop in that year largely sparked the fire that swept through Wall Street in 2021 and led to his testimony on Capitol Hill.

He announced his return through a tweet, which is his first tweet in 150 weeks, and may bring another storm to the cryptocurrency and traditional investment circles.

Who is Roaring Kitty

Before Gill caused a sensation in the financial world under the name Roaring Kitty (or DeepFuckingValue on Reddit), he dreamed of becoming a track star, according to the Wall Street Journal. Gill's first attempt to create content on YouTube was to post a 4:33 mile running video.

Although he was unable to fulfill his track dreams due to injuries, Gill turned his attention to the stock market. In 2019, Gill became the financial health director of the life insurance company MassMutual. That same year, he joined Reddit and began posting on the WallStreetsBets subreddit.

Gill is well known for his role in the GameStop short squeeze event on January 27, 2021. On Reddit, he gained a large following for investing in GameStop stock, promoting the asset on social media, and his Roaring Kitty YouTube channel.

In a Reddit post in 2020, Gill wrote, "For reference, the price will rise in March, and GME will continue to outperform the market."

The stage is set.

GameStop

At the time, the video game retailer was in financial trouble, and many institutional investors and hedge funds believed that GME stock was overvalued and began shorting GameStop stock.

At the time, a share of GME stock was worth about $5.16. Before the surge in GameStop stock, its price was far below its previous all-time high.

Users on the r/WallStreetBets subreddit, including Gill, noticed the increasing number of short positions on GME and sensed an opportunity to trigger a short squeeze. A "short squeeze" refers to a sharp increase in the price of an asset, forcing those who are "shorting" the asset to be liquidated.

Although Gill did not single-handedly trigger the short squeeze on GameStop, he was an important figure in the battle, being one of the earliest to go against the mainstream view and believe that GameStop was undervalued.

Writing on Reddit under the name DeepFuckingValue, Gill said, "People talk about the decline of GameStop, but they will make $2 billion in revenue in one quarter at the end of a game console's life cycle. The narrative of 'digital transformation' has been overblown. This business model still has potential for development, and the new console will be a significant driver."

As GME's stock price rose, several companies betting on GameStop's decline were forced to close their positions, especially Melvin Capital, which lost nearly $3 billion from shorting GameStop.

On January 28, the second day of the GameStop short squeeze, which also saw historic gains, the retail investor platform Robinhood faced two lawsuits after preventing customers from buying more GameStop stock. When Robinhood halted purchases of GameStop, the stock price had already reached $492, but quickly fell to $193.

Aftermath of GME

On February 18, 2021, Gill was summoned to testify before the U.S. House Financial Services Committee. Also present at the hearing were the CEO of Robinhood and the multinational hedge fund Citadel.

At the hearing, Gill said, "Indeed, my investment in that company has appreciated many times over. I feel very lucky about that. I also believe that the current stock price proves that my view of the company was correct. I have no clients, nor do I 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 members of Congress 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 Reddit post was on April 16, 2021. He quietly left social media on June 18, 2021, and last posted a video of a sleeping cat on the X platform.

GameStop had tried to capitalize on the public's attention to develop its business, even entering the cryptocurrency and NFT fields. However, the company's cryptocurrency business did not go far, and in August 2023, GameStop closed its NFT wallet business due to regulatory uncertainty, and in January of this year, it closed its NFT marketplace.

The GameStop short squeeze event and Roaring Kitty's role in it have become the core of a documentary and a movie. In September 2022, Netflix released the mini-series "Eat the Rich: The GameStop Saga," followed by the feature film "Dumb Money" in 2023.

Return

The news of Roaring Kitty's return once again caused a storm on social media.

For example, Andrew Tate, a pioneer of meme stocks and a social media influencer, announced that he would sell $500,000 worth of Bitcoin to join the latest GameStop short squeeze.

Cryptocurrency influencer Ansem responded to Roaring Kitty's tweet, saying, "What are we buying?"

Even David Portnoy, the founder of Barstool Sports, is preparing to join in, quoting a line from The Godfather Part III: "You want to go crazy, then go crazy! Every time I think I'm out, they pull me back in."

It is currently unclear why Gill chose to return to the X platform, or if he has truly returned. His Reddit and YouTube accounts are still inactive, and since his first return tweet, he has only posted a dozen or so video clips and has not responded to Decrypt's request for comment.

But his apparent reappearance has clearly stirred the enthusiasm of the GameStop community, sparked a meme wave on Solana, and disrupted the broader meme market, including 5.7% increases for DOGE, 5.0% for SHIB, and 15.4% for PEPE.

The meme tokens with the same name on Solana also experienced a surge, led by GME and KITTY, with recent peak market values of $100 million and $30 million, respectively, both rising more than tenfold yesterday. Other GME-related meme tokens also saw varying degrees of increase, and the concept even extended to institutions such as Melvin Capital, which bet on GameStop's decline.

All of this was triggered by a series of video posts. If Gill, or whoever is currently controlling the @TheRoaringKitty X account, starts to explicitly tweet about stocks or cryptocurrencies, the market is likely to be ignited once again.

免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。