GameStop and memecoins soar as ‘Roaring Kitty’ hints at comeback

It's the meme that launched a thousand trades. Shares in GameStop Corp and related meme coins surged on Monday morning after retail trader Keith Gill—a.k.a. the “TheRoaringKitty"—hinted at his return to trading, by sharing a meme on X. Gill—also known as "DeepF***ingValue" on Reddit—is credited with sparking the GameStop rally of 2021, where shares in the ailing video game retailer soared 21-fold over a two-week period, before crashing to pre-surge levels in a matter of days. Monday's post marked the end of Gill's 3-year hiatus.

Gamestop’s share price rose by 111% on Monday, but has since retreated to about half that value, trading at around $30 as of noon EST. Another meme stock, AMC Entertainment Holdings, was up 12%. Meanwhile, over the past day, certain meme coins seem to have jolted by the post: GameStop coin GME, unaffiliated with the company, is up by over 1,775%, according to CoinGecko data. An AMC token is up by over 4,500%, in addition to a cat-themed meme coin KITTY, up by over 8,000%, according to data from DEXTools.

The meme in question, a slouching desk-sitting man leaning forward, symbolizes the act of “locking in,” or a period of intense focus, with X users interpreting the post as a rallying cry to lock into trading markets. "Hey bro what we buying," one user replied; "Just in time for the memecoin supercycle" another added.

DEXTools data also shows that a host of opportunistic tokens have been issued over the past day. GameStop and STONKS (slang for meme stocks) have amassed over $300,000 in market capitalization each during their first 10-hours-or-so of trading, while others, such as TheRoaringKitty, have reached less than $1,000 in liquidity.

Meme markets were buzzing following Gill’s post because of his role in the January 2021 short squeeze of video game retailer GameStop. GameStop is a U.S. brick-and-mortar retailer that sells video games and before the rally, it was widely deemed to be in declining health. Its share price had been tumbling for an extended period of time, from around $50 at the start of 2014 to just an all-time low of 64 cents in April 2020.

Gill began posting analysis of the company on Reddit from 2019 which became a viral sensation during the COVID pandemic. In 2021, his fame grew after he instructed an online community of retail traders to buy GameStop options and leverage their shares of the company. Within a month, the stock rose from $4 to over $120. Gill’s $53,000 investment was worth nearly $50 million at its peak, cultivating Gill’s cult-like status as a trader who made a fortune by betting against hedge funds—in other words, playing Wall Street at its own game, from the comfort of his bedroom.  One hedge fund, Melvin Capital, lost billions of dollars betting on the decline of ailing stocks like GameStop.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com