• Keith Gill, the trader popular as Roaring Kitty, is slapped with a lawsuit for allegedly orchestrating GME stock pump and dump. 
• Solana meme coins have posted double-digit gains in past 24 hours. WIF, BONK, MEW, WOLF rallied. 
• Solana meme coins and large market cap meme tokens had posted gains alongside GME stock following Gill’s return to X in May. 

Keith Gill, popular as Roaring Kitty, the trader behind the alleged GameStop (GME) stock pump and dump has been slammed with a class action lawsuit. The plaintiff accuses Gill of orchestrating a pump-and-dump scheme and failed to disclose his purchase and sale of GameStop options in May 2024. 

The lawsuit was filed on June 28. Crypto traders are expected to closely monitor developments in the lawsuit as Solana-based and large market cap meme coins rallied alongside GME stock. 

Solana-based meme coins have noted a resurgence on Monday with Dogwifhat (WIF), Popcat (POPCAT), cat in a dogs world (MEW), LandWolf (WOLF) have noted double-digit gains in the past 24 hours. 

Solana meme coins rally while Roaring Kitty faces securities fraud allegations

Keith Gill is being sued for alleged “pump and dump” or manipulation of GME stock. The June 28 lawsuit was filed at the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York. 

Gill faces charges of financial fraud allegedly orchestrated through a series of social media posts starting May 13. The plaintiff who filed the class action is represented by the law firm Pomerantz and alleges that he was “harmed” after purchasing 25 shares and three call options of GME in May. 

The crypto community has had mixed reactions to the news. Solana-based meme coins started rallying in the past 24 hours. Several Solana-based memes have noted double-digit gains, and most others have been close to 10% higher in the past 24 hours, per CoinGecko data. 

Solana-based meme coins

Attorney Eric Rosen believes the lawsuit against Gill is “unlikely to succeed.” In his analysis, Rosen argues that “the entire nature of securities fraud is that the fraudster either lies to you, misleads you by failing to disclose something, or omits to disclose something material that they are required to disclose. Here, Gill disclosed he had purchased options with a June 21, 2024 expiration date. Any reasonable person, let alone a reasonable investor, would have understood that Gill would be selling such a large position or exercising the options.”

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One week after celebrities Caitlyn Jenner and Iggy Azalea launched buzzy meme coins, it appeared as if legendary professional wrestler Hulk Hogan had done much the same on Thursday with the HULK token on Solana.

But after the coin was quickly “rugged” at the expense of investors, Hogan took to Instagram to urge fans to ignore any crypto post that came from his Twitter account.

“Please do not take notice of any posts posted today,” Hogan shared on Instagram. “They are not from me and will be promptly removed.”

Indeed, there’s no sign of the purported crypto scam on Hogan’s official Twitter account. In fact, there’s nothing on his feed anymore—everything’s been deleted.

It’s not immediately clear whether Hogan’s Twitter account was hacked to share an elaborate crypto scheme—as we’ve seen in the past with other celebrities and public figures—or if perhaps someone connected to Hogan and the account had used it maliciously.

The website URL on Hogan’s otherwise empty Twitter profile still points to a website created for the token, and a quick search of his name reveals the wreckage left in the crypto community on Thursday.

Hogan’s account had shared dozens of posts about the HULK meme coin, including tweeting at Iggy Azalea about her coin. The account also shared an apparent video endorsement of the coin, but journalist Matt Binder tweeted that it’s actually pulled from an unrelated 2023 video about a karaoke competition and didn’t specifically mention cryptocurrency.

According to on-chain data from DexScreener, the HULK token quickly skyrocketed to a market cap of nearly $19 million. That’s before the price quickly plunged, apparently due to the person who originally deployed the token selling large quantities—a crypto “rug pull” on buyers—or a classic pump-and-dump, for that matter.

HULK now sits at a market cap of just $3 million, down about 85% from the short-lived peak, with some $82 million worth of trading volume in just a matter of hours. Traders have taken to Twitter to complain about feeling swindled by the legend—though that apparent dismay, in some cases, may be softened by the glow of nostalgia.

“LMFAO man, I was the biggest Hulk Hogan fan growing up… literally would watch wrestling in the electronic store TV from outside every week,” tweeted pseudonymous trader and influencer Wizard of SoHo. “If I could tell my 8-year-old self that someday Hulk Hogan would scam me for 20K … holy shit LMFAO.”

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.