Keith Gill's verified X account, known as Roaring Kitty to 1.6 million followers, posted a Solana Pump.fun contract address on Monday after 16 months of silence, according to reports from CryptoSlate. The May 11 post at 21:13 GMT carried no caption beyond the token address and a short cartoon clip, sharply breaking from Gill's history of long GameStop livestreams and detailed market commentary. The posts have since been deleted, adding to the unusual nature of the return. Notably, the same account followed within minutes with an image and the text 'red bandit crew 4 life', further reinforcing the abrupt and uncharacteristic nature of the post. As reported by Bloomberg, the tweets appeared and disappeared around 5:40 p.m. ET, with one depicting a cat and another featuring Pepe the Frog wearing Roaring Kitty's trademark red bandanna.
The post pointed to a freshly launched Solana meme coin called Red Kitten Crew (RKC). As reported by CryptoSlate, Gill also indicated he held both GameStop (GME) and RKC, causing a 25% surge in the RockyCat price. The token peaked at a $5.97 million market cap before easing to roughly $4 million, with trading volume hitting $2.55 million over 24 hours. According to Bloomberg, the market cap of the coin briefly jumped to about $12 million around the time of the tweet before cratering to about $2.6 million thereafter. The older BNB Chain RockyCat is an established, unrelated community underdog meme project with no affiliation to the new Solana token, with no shared team, connection, or fair-launch narrative between the two projects.
GameStop shares turned negative after gaining as much as 13% the same day, with GME trading for $23.19 as of the report. According to CryptoSlate, RKC graduated from Pump.fun's bonding curve to Raydium within minutes, demonstrating the rapid market response to the token launch. The token's performance reflects the immediate impact of the Roaring Kitty association, though the two RKC tokens share only similar tickers and cat themes without any actual connection. As reported by Bloomberg, the emergent consensus on the r/Superstonk subreddit suggests the account was hacked, with some members speculating the hack was intended to thwart GameStop's attempt to purchase eBay.
GameStop holders and on-chain analysts flagged the post almost immediately, citing the abrupt return and lack of explanation, as reported by CryptoSlate. The choice of a fresh Pump.fun launch broke from Gill's content history, mirroring recent takeovers of high-profile crypto accounts including Michael Saylor's MicroStrategy handle and Kylian Mbappe's X profile. Pump.fun itself has been identified as a recurring vector, with research suggesting 98.6% of tokens launched there carry scam or wash-trading characteristics. Gill has not addressed the post on any other channel, with traders treating RKC as an unverified, high-risk asset tied to a suspected account compromise. The pattern of exploiting established crypto personalities for meme token launches has become increasingly common in the current market environment.
