Yes, on January 28, 2021, Robinhood restricted users from buying shares of GameStop ($GME) and several other volatile stocks, effectively halting the massive, community-driven buying rally, which caused the stock price to drop. While users could not buy new shares, they were still allowed to sell existing holdings.
On January 28, some brokerages, particularly app-based brokerage services such as Robinhood, halted the buying of GameStop and other securities, citing the next day their inability to post sufficient collateral at clearing houses to execute their clients' orders.
But the day after GameStop reached its peak, Robinhood abruptly restricted trading in some meme stocks, claiming that it had been forced to do so by a liquidity crunch, Wall Street rules and clearinghouse limits. The restrictions caused the stocks to plunge, prompting lawsuits, congressional hearings and an S.E.C.
Vlad Tenev, the current CEO of Robinhood, lost his billionaire status and approximately $4.28 billion in money and assets after the GameStop short squeeze events. Baiju Bhatt, co-founder of Robinhood, stepped down as co-ceo but still holds the position of Chief Creative Officer and Director.
Yes, Baiju Bhatt is a billionaire, co-founder of the Robinhood trading app, and was listed as one of the youngest billionaires on the 2025 Forbes 400 list with a net worth estimated at around $6.9 billion, largely from his significant stake in Robinhood.
Robinhood has major catalysts
Robinhood's business is expected to keep growing as new products start to mature. The average estimate is that its annual revenue in 2025 was $4.53 billion, up by 53% YoY, while its earnings-per-share rose to $2.03, up from $1.56.
How Much is Roaring Kitty Worth? Gill's belief in GameStop didn't just make him famous—it made him incredibly wealthy. After exercising his call options, Gill still holds 9,001,000 shares of GameStop. At today's price of $29.70 per share, those shares are worth about $267 million.
During the height of the squeeze, Melvin was reportedly losing more than a billion dollars a day. The short position adopted by Melvin Capital and others resulted in more than 139% of existing shares of GME being shorted, making GameStop stock the most shorted equity in the world.
The Robinhood app makes it difficult to manage a diversified portfolio. Most reviewers suggest that tracking more than three or four positions isn't practical with Robinhood, which leads to overweighing your portfolio with one or two equities—never a good practice.
As the shares were borrowed, the short-seller must eventually return that number of shares to the lender (plus interest and dividends, if any), and therefore makes a profit if they spend less buying back the shares than they received at the earlier date when selling them.
Michael Burry made approximately $100 million personally and generated over $700 million for his investors by shorting the U.S. housing market, a move that paid off spectacularly during the 2008 financial crisis, with his firm Scion Capital realizing huge returns like 489% between 2000 and June 2008.
Although GameStop's legacy retail business is facing decline, as observable in the 4.6% Y/Y revenue drop in Q3-FY2025, the aggressive cost rationalization (SG&A down 21.5% Y/Y) has stabilized profitability. The primary risk for my GameStop buy thesis is capital misallocation and stagnation.
We measure duration as the number of consecutive days with short-squeeze events for a particular stock. We find that short-squeeze events are short-lived. Specifically, more than 90% of the market and more than 70% of lender short-squeeze events across both the US and the EU do not last longer than one day.
Yes, Daymond John is still very rich, with an estimated net worth of around $350 million, built from his iconic FUBU brand, his role on Shark Tank, and various other ventures like The Shark Group, speaking, and authoring. He's considered a centi-millionaire and continues to be an active investor and entrepreneur.
The biggest Shark Tank miss is widely considered to be Doorbot (now Ring), which the Sharks passed on in 2013 but was later acquired by Amazon for $1 billion in 2018, a massive missed opportunity for the investors. Another significant missed deal, though not a "missed company" but a rejected offer, was the founders of Coffee Meets Bagel turning down Mark Cuban's record $30 million offer for the whole company, though they raised millions in later funding, says Entrepreneur.
Campbell only sold five of those shares, making more from that sale than she spent on the investment of the 100. She still holds the remaining shares.
The "Robinhood 25000 rule" refers to the FINRA Pattern Day Trader (PDT) rule, requiring users in a margin account to maintain at least $25,000 in equity to perform unlimited day trades (four or more in five business days); otherwise, they face restrictions, though cash accounts or trading futures bypass this, and proposed changes could alter this rule.