(Reuters) - Ahead of a grilling by lawmakers over the frenzied trading in retailer GameStop, Melvin Capital Management Chief Executive Gabriel Plotkin, Robinhood Markets CEO Vladimir Tenev and Keith Gill, a YouTube streamer known as Roaring Kitty, laid out their defense. Here are key quotes from the testimonies here of the players involved and here is a link here to biographies of some of them. KEITH GILL: “I’m as bullish as I’ve ever been on a potential turnaround. In short, I like the stock.” “I grew up playing videogames and shopping at GameStop... I knew the company had an opportunity to reinvigorate this business. “The investment I made was risky, but I was confident in my analysis, and I was willing to accept the loss if I was proven wrong. My timing was far from perfect, and many of the options contracts I purchased expired worthless because GameStop’s stock price remained depressed longer than I expected. “I’ve been asked why I decided to share my investment ideas on social media. My investment skills had reached a level where I felt sharing them publicly could help others.” “Ultimately my GameStop investment was a success... I was so happy to visit my family in Brockton for the holidays and give them the great news – we were millionaires.” GABRIEL PLOTKIN, FOUNDER, MELVIN CAPITAL MANAGEMENT: “We had been short GameStop since Melvin’s inception six years earlier because we believed and still believe that its business model – selling new and used video games in physical stores – is being overtaken by digital downloads through the internet.” “In January 2021, a group on Reddit began to make posts about Melvin’s specific investments... Many of these posts were laced with antisemitic slurs directed at me and others... Others sent similarly profane and racist text messages to me.” “When this frenzy began, Melvin started closing out its position in GameStop at a loss, not because our investment thesis had changed but because something unprecedented was happening. We also reduced many other Melvin positions at significant losses – both long and short – that were the subject of similar posts. “Investors in Melvin suffered significant losses. It is now our job to earn it back.” VLADIMIR TENEV, ROBINHOOD “In the face of ... unprecedented volatility and volume... Robinhood Securities placed temporary restrictions on certain securities to facilitate compliance with clearinghouse deposit requirements, thereby allowing Robinhood to continue to serve our customers and comply with all trading regulations. “The action we took was for one reason and one reason only: to allow us to continue to meet our regulatory deposit requirements.”