May 11: Posts From Keith Gill’s Verified X Account Briefly Pumped New Solana Meme Coin RKC, Then It Collapsed

Posts from the verified X account of Keith Gill, the retail-trading figure better known online as Roaring Kitty, briefly sent a newly launched Solana meme coin soaring late Monday before it collapsed just as quickly.

On May 11, Gill’s verified account, @TheRoaringKitty, published posts that included a Pump.fun contract address and a short cartoon clip referring to a token called Red Kitten Crew, or RKC. The token’s market capitalization surged to roughly $11 million to $12 million within minutes, according to multiple reports, before falling sharply after the posts were deleted about an hour later. On-chain analysts cited by several outlets said more than $2.86 million was extracted across more than 80 wallets during the episode.

The key uncertainty is whether the posts were authentic. As of May 13, Gill had not publicly confirmed that the messages were legitimate, and coverage across crypto and financial media generally treated the incident as a suspected compromise of his X account, not a confirmed endorsement by Gill himself.

That distinction mattered because Gill’s online profile has repeatedly moved markets. He is the investor known as Roaring Kitty and DeepFuckingValue, whose bullish posts on GameStop helped make him a central figure in the 2021 meme-stock frenzy. A post from his verified account can draw immediate attention from retail traders, especially in crypto markets where thin liquidity can magnify price swings.

RKC was launched on Pump.fun, a Solana-based meme-token launchpad designed to let users create and trade tokens quickly. That low-friction structure can also produce abrupt spikes and crashes when speculative demand floods into a newly created coin.

According to on-chain analytics cited by multiple outlets and drawing on data from Lookonchain, the token’s deployer or developer accumulated about 395.18 million RKC — roughly 39.5% of the supply — across multiple wallets for about 20 SOL, the Solana blockchain’s native token. Those same reports said the developer later sold for about 5,071 SOL and collected another roughly 1,209 SOL in Pump.fun creator fees. Some outlets summarized the realized outbound value at about 6,260 SOL, worth roughly $729,000 at the time.

A separate on-chain investigator, StarPlatinum_, said in a thread reproduced by multiple outlets that “Over 80 wallets just extracted $2,864,364 from crypto.” That figure became one of the clearest estimates of how much value was pulled from the token during the brief surge and collapse.

The damage to late buyers appeared quickly. Multiple outlets also cited a Lookonchain example of one trader who bought about 31.15 million RKC for $250,900 and sold for about $62,200 after the posts were removed, a loss of roughly $188,600 in about an hour. Lookonchain summarized the trade with a warning: “Don’t FOMO trade.”

Other reporting, including from Whale Alert, said the event generated more than $10.5 million in sell volume and underscored how little liquidity remained once enthusiasm evaporated. In practical terms, that meant traders who rushed in on the apparent endorsement faced a market that could not absorb exits without steep losses.

The episode fits a broader pattern in crypto in which high-profile social media accounts — or accounts presented as high-profile voices — are used to direct attention to thinly traded tokens that then collapse. In this case, the posts’ connection to Gill’s verified account was enough to move a newly launched meme coin almost instantly.

But as of Tuesday, the central fact remained unresolved: the posts came from Gill’s verified X account, yet he had not publicly said they were genuine. Until he does, the market reaction stands as another example of how quickly attention, speculation and limited liquidity can combine to destroy value.