Roaring Kitty returns, putting meme stocks and memecoins back into focus

Quick Take
- The popular “Roaring Kitty” account posted on X Sunday night for the first time in nearly three years.
- Keith Gill and the subreddit WallStreetBets were at the center of the 2021 meme stock frenzy.
- GameStop’s stock rose more than 100% in early market trading Monday.


The return of “Roaring Kitty” has boosted several so-called meme stocks in the U.S. markets this morning.
Keith Gill’s @TheRoaringKitty account on the social media platform X was dormant from June 2021 until Sunday night, when the account posted an image of a man holding a controller and moving to sit forward in his chair, a meme frequently used by video gamers. That post alone was enough for GameStop’s stock to spike more than 100% Monday morning, being halted for trading several times for volatility.
Gill and the subreddit /WallStreetBets were at the center of the 2021 meme stock frenzy when shares of GameStop and AMC Entertainment, among others, surged more than 1,000% by the end of the year. Other struggling stocks like BlackBerry and Bed, Bath & Beyond also dealt with wild share price fluctuations throughout that year.
Around this same time, traders began piling into Dogecoin, which was trading under $0.01 a share in January 2021 and crossed the $0.50 mark that May before falling back. DOGE currently trades at $0.15.
At publication time, DOGE and SHIB were up about 5.8% over the past 24 hours, according to The Block’s pricing page.
Memecoins were in favor earlier this year following the arrival of spot bitcoin ETFs, and Maartje Bus, VP of research of crypto data aggregator Messari, championed their use case.
“Crypto is often criticized for not having use cases for the average Joe, and that is a fair comment,” Bus said during a speech at BUIDL Asia in Seoul In March. “But memecoins actually have been successful, consistently, in bringing people on-chain.”
The GMCI Meme Index, which tracks the largest memecoins by market cap, was up 6.4% at 299.49 at publication time. The GME meme token, which borrows GameStop's stock ticker but has no official affiliation with the company, traded more than 1,200% higher on Monday with a total volume of more than $70 million, Insider reported citing according to data from CoinMarketCap.
The frenzy Gill created in 2021 led to reviews from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the attorneys general of New York and Texas, and, eventually, a U.S. Congressional hearing. Perhaps most notably, Robinhood and its co-founder, Vlad Tenev, became embroiled in the controversy.
The Robinhood factor
Settlement cycles came into the forefront in 2022, The Block reported at the time, as “the sharp increase in trading volumes of that stock and others on the Robinhood platform caused the startup to temporarily halt trading in certain shares, drawing outrage from users. Robinhood had been hit by higher capital requirements from DTCC, the clearinghouse, to provide cover in case trades failed during the two-day settlement period.”
Today, crypto makes up a significant portion of Robinhood’s business. In the first quarter of 2024, crypto trading volumes increased 224% year-over-year to $36 billion. Equity trading volumes rose 40% year over year to $225 billion.
Following the earnings release, Tenev said Robinhood is taking a stance for customers and that it was "not acceptable" for crypto not to be accessible to Americans.
The Block reported on May 6 that the SEC issued Robinhood a Wells Notice, an indication of forthcoming legal action, for alleged securities violations.
“We tried to create what’s called a special purpose broker-dealer for the purpose of transacting in crypto assets. And we actually came in good faith to meet with the SEC. I think we met with them 16 times. And unfortunately, that was not reciprocated, and it was clear that there didn’t seem to be a path, and so here we are," Tenev said in a CNBC interview.
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