Reddit’s ‘Roaring Kitty’ Will Communicate at GameStop Listening to

A young day trader known as Roaring Kitty who was at the center of the GameStop stock trading frenzy will make his first public appearance at a congressional hearing on Thursday.

The trader, Keith Gill, was on a list released on Friday by the panel that will appear before the House Committee on Financial Services to investigate the circumstances surrounding the wilder price spikes at GameStop and other so-called meme stocks.

Mr. Gill is the only non-executive director who attended the event entitled “Game Stopped? Who wins and loses when short sellers, social media and retail investors collide? “

The other people who testify that day are Vlad Tenev, the executive director of online broker Robinhood. Kenneth C. Griffin, the executive director of Citadel trading firm; Gabe Plotkin, the executive director of Melvin Capital Management hedge fund; and Steve Huffman, the executive director of social media company Reddit.

Mr. Gill remained anonymous until he went out as the person behind Roaring Kitty last month. It was under this name that Mr. Gill shot dozens of videos from his Massachusetts home promoting GameStop stock.

He built a huge stake in GameStop stock and became a hero among online viewers who gathered on Reddit to talk about the stock. But his approval has caught the attention of regulators in his home state.

Many of these traders bought and sold stocks through the Robinhood trading app. However, Robinhood and other brokers effectively blocked GameStop trading on its platform as the stock was most actively traded on Wall Street, with the stock price rising as much as 1,700 percent in January.

The surge caused huge losses for the hedge funds, which had made big bets against GameStop. Melvin lost 53 percent in January, said a person familiar with the matter, and had to charge billions of dollars from other hedge funds, including Citadel, to stay afloat.

Robinhood’s decision to block trade enraged its customers and was condemned by both parties. The unlikely combination of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Ted Cruz agreed to the issue.

Robinhood raised $ 3.4 billion in five days to ensure it had enough cash to cover trading on its platforms. Even so, the platform continued to restrict trading in GameStop and other so-called meme stocks like AMC Entertainment for days.

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