This is not a Political Theater.

The virtual hearing lasts more than 5 hours, starting from 9:00 am ET. CEOs of the 4 major participants[i], along with Keith Gill, the major Reddit GME post contributor, testified before the Financial Service Committee. The hearing helps to clarify several unsolved questions that arise from the GME saga, and at the same time exposes other real issues in the financial market worth examining.Vlad and Griffin both pushed against the conspiracy theory circulating on the internet that there was coordination between the market makers and the broker on the trading restriction. Griffin said during the hearing that his company did not know the restriction issue until Robinhood made the decision available to the public.Though there has been no evidence showing any illegal correspondence among those companies, I can see why the rumor caught on so quickly:1) Robinhood’s revenue has grown from $2.9 million in 2015 to $271 million in the first two quarters of 2020.2) 40–55% of all Robinhood revenue come from payments for order flow.3) Citadel Securities (a Citadel affiliated company) is the largest client who have to pay for the order flow, among other five as listed on its order routing public report[ii].4) On 1/25/2021, Citadel made a $2.75[iii] billion investment in Melvin Capital, the major GME short seller who absorbed a 53% loss in January due to its large short position in GME.Just looking at the size of the capital involved, and the timing of the event, it is not an exaggeration to say that they are important stakeholders to each other. But this could not be evidence against their integrity. Robinhood discloses these order routing activities in their SEC Rule 606 and 607 Disclosure[iv]. And Melvin capital refuted that the funding is a “bailout”. Cash injection at the “difficult time” is no different from investors trying…