Grant Cardone’s Bitcoin Bet: Inside His Real Estate-Crypto Plan

Real estate billionaire Grant Cardone has built a massive personal brand centred on sales and investing. Recently, he introduced a hybrid strategy that combines real estate with Bitcoin (BTC -2.21%).

What’s more is that Cardone has already added Bitcoin to his company’s balance sheet, with plans to accumulate thousands more. Notably, he’s now also exploring deeper into the crypto space and leveraging tokenization to transform traditional real estate investing.

This combination of moving large amounts of capital into Bitcoin, promoting real-world asset tokenization, and marketing his ideas aggressively to retail investors has made Cardone a notable figure in crypto.

As Cardone positions himself as a bridge between traditional real estate and crypto finance, let’s deep dive into all that he has to say about Bitcoin and all that he has been doing in the sector.

Grant Cardone’s Wealth-Building Philosophy

Grant Timothy Cardone is a high-profile American entrepreneur, real estate investor, author, and financial influencer.

He is the founder and CEO of Cardone Capital, a real estate investment firm managing billions in property assets. The firm manages about 15,000 units, more than half of which have been crowdfunded across 18,400 investors, while the remaining units belong to Cardone himself. Cardone Capital distributes $80 million in dividends annually.

Known for his aggressive wealth-building strategies, Cardone has built a large social media following across YouTube, Instagram, and X (previously Twitter).

He has cultivated his brand through sales training, books like the New York Times bestseller “If You’re Not First, You’re Last,” and motivational business content. His brand primarily revolves around “10X thinking,” the idea that you must multiply goals and effort by 10 to achieve extreme success. Appearing in the show Undercover Billionaire, he showed the audience just how that can be done.

According to Cardone, it’s not the size of money that dictates how well you do with it, but what you do with it.

“You don’t need money. It would be best if you had contacts. You need people, and you need to relate to them well. You need the right people, though — right people that are already in play,” said Cardone in an interview.

Cardone argues that “making it” isn’t about luck; it’s about a comprehensive wealth plan. This involves eliminating bad debt, building a high-level network, and maintaining an unshakeable belief in your vision. To unleash your full potential, you must stay hungry—or as he puts it, “greedy”—for a better life.

The path to financial success, he has argued, begins with the mindset, not with budgets. It’s not just hard work that enables one to achieve financial independence, but having a comprehensive plan to accumulate wealth.

“The first thing to fix about finance is your mind. If you want proof of this just look at most of America. They work hard, buy a house, and save more than they spend yet still never attain financial freedom.” wrote Cardone in a post on X last year. “The second thing to do is to have a wealth plan designed to create wealth. 83% of all wealthy people had a plan in place in order to create their wealth.”

He further emphasized the need for intentional charting of long-term financial plans, as most high-net-worth individuals do, and what helps them accumulate wealth rather than just have financial stability.

Cardone also noted the importance of investing in productive assets. The idea is not just to save for the sake of saving, but to create wealth that can outpace rising inflation and currency devaluation.

“Simply working hard and saving is no longer a successful strategy as interest rates on savings will not keep up with the destruction of currency and taxes. Those who attain real wealth have a plan for their freedom whereby they earn to invest and then later borrow against appreciated assets to reduce taxes.”

– Cardone

From Accidental Bitcoin Holder to Strategic Buyer

The self-made real estate mogul is a staunch supporter of investing in assets that can protect their wealth and help them navigate inflation, rising living costs, and macroeconomic uncertainty.

The peer-to-peer digital currency Bitcoin, with its immutability, censorship resistance, a total supply of 21 million, and no centralized control, actually offers the perfect solution. And while Cardone’s wealth primarily comes from large-scale real estate investments, he has also been venturing into Bitcoin for some time now.

It was back in 2018 that the self-made millionaire, who prefers to invest in sure things, revealed in an interview with ‘CNBC Make It’ that he had accidentally accumulated Bitcoin.

“I own some bitcoin,” he said at the time, “but it’s funny how I got it. I was paid for a speaking gig in bitcoin.”

The digital currency was worth only $500 when Cardone received it, but the rise in BTC’s value made the gig “worth almost $2 million.”

Despite this massive increase in his wealth, he said he would never buy Bitcoin because of its high volatility and because the idea of “losing money terrifies” him. “I will take it as a product or a service. I think somebody is actually going to buy my plane in bitcoin,” said Cardone. “Am I going to go out and buy it? No. … All my money either goes back into myself, into my businesses or it goes into hard assets like real estate.”

Yet another reason for his aversion to buying Bitcoin was so that he could “create indestructible wealth.”

“If anything ever happened to me, my family would never have to worry about the future. When I spend money, I think in terms of my long-term goals and legacy. That’s why I don’t risk losing my money.”

– Cardone

So, not only was he not interested in buying BTC himself, but he wouldn’t recommend others either. “Be smart,” said Cardone. “Position yourself to get rich for sure by making big plays on sure things.”

Bitcoin may not be a sure thing to Cardone eight years ago but his views has since changed drastically, much like many well-known figures such as Strategy’s (MSTR -3.77%) Michael Saylor, who believed Bitcoin days to be “numbered” and likened it to “online gambling,” twelve years ago only to now own 3.4% of BTC’s total supply to become largest public Bitcoin treasury company.

Like Saylor, Cardone’s stance on a decentralized currency with a fixed supply has changed drastically.

He has not only been pushing the idea of a Bitcoin-powered real estate empire but has also been actively buying BTC. He has finally begun using stable cash flow from his real estate business to invest in Bitcoin, whose price has returned 106,770% over 12 years.

As of writing, the $1.5 trillion market-cap cryptocurrency is trading above $72,000, down 42.5% from its all-time high (ATH) of $126,000, hit on October 6, 2025.

The Real Estate-Bitcoin Hybrid Fund Strategy

While Cardone initially had little interest in actively buying Bitcoin, he soon found another way to tap into the asset’s growing popularity, selling luxury real estate to Bitcoin-rich buyers.

In early 2024, Cardone listed his Malibu home, an oceanfront mansion on exclusive Carbon Beach (also known as Billionaire’s Beach), for $65 million. He bought the property from a Ukrainian oligarch for $40 million two years before and renovated it with new oak hardwood floors, floor-to-ceiling glass doors, a biohacker gym, and a chef’s kitchen.

This was an off-market listing, so not publicly advertised but sold privately. It was a whisper listing, with Cardone ideally looking to be paid for the 10,000-square-foot mansion in Bitcoin, but not exclusively, as he also accepted USD from non-crypto natives.

Then, in September last year, he listed his oceanfront mansion in Golden Beach, Miami, priced completely in Bitcoin. “605 Ocean Blvd — listed for sale BTC only — trying to catch the dip,” Cardone posted on X. The property was offered for 400 BTC and was later marked as sold.

Last month, he listed yet another property, again entirely priced in Bitcoin. But this time, he’s “looking for a Bitcoin OG who wants to move his bitcoin to live in a Miami beach house,” costing 700 BTC.

What started with Bitcoin-priced luxury homes soon evolved into something much bigger. In 2025, Cardone actually moved much deeper into the space, introducing new investment vehicles that mix crypto and real estate.

The way this fund works is that the properties serve as the fund’s “anchor” assets, while monthly income from them helps fund “strategic Bitcoin purchases.” By June 2025, Cardone Capital had added 1,000 BTC to its balance sheet, slowly moving towards its goal of owning 10,000 BTC.

So, the new fund invests cash flow generated by property into BTC, with Cardone framing his “real estate bitcoin hybrid funds” as a bridge between innovation and stability.

Cardone’s Real Estate–Bitcoin Hybrid Investment Model

“Nobody else has ever done this to scale. Nobody’s ever done this particular model,” he said in an interview. “And the response from our investors is phenomenal.”

Once seeing Bitcoin as a risky venture himself, Cardone now helps others overcome that fear. Talking about his longtime friend, who has never invested a penny with him in real estate because it’s “too slow,” and never bought bitcoin because it’s “too risky,” Cardone noted that the same friend “put $15 million” into the fund.

For the pilot project, Cardone purchased an apartment building in Melbourne, Florida, on the Space Coast. He then added $15 million worth of BTC to the fund, which, combined with the complex, bought for $72 million, brought the total value of the fund to $88 million. Any cash flow that’s generated by the property will be used to purchase Bitcoin.

“Cardone Capital adding more bitcoin from cash flow at 50% discounts. Long term I anticipate we outperform “old” REIT models returns by 3X,” said Cardone on X last week.

The purchases are being made using the dollar-cost averaging (DCA) strategy, in which a set amount is invested at regular intervals, regardless of price, to reduce volatility and market timing risk.

The fund plans to invest in DCA into the largest cryptocurrency every month for the next four years or at least until the fund’s asset ratio shifts to 30% Bitcoin and 70% real estate from 15% Bitcoin and 85% real estate at the time.

Bitcoin will be accumulated directly, not through ETFs, with purchases made within 72 hours of monthly distributions and then held through an institutional custodian.

This is just the beginning, though, as Cardone has shared his goal of rolling out several other such projects, aiming for a total investment of $1 billion. Already, Cardone Capital has launched several such investment vehicles.

In June 2025, Cardone Capital launched its fourth investment vehicle that was tied to the Miami River property. Meanwhile, with a property in Fort Lauderdale, Cardone plans to let tenants become Bitcoin investors, too.

For future projects, he plans to issue corporate bonds that will provide long-term, low-cost capital and replicate Strategy’s convertible note formula. It was, in fact, Saylor who gave him the idea to combine real estate and Bitcoin, revealed Cardone. His model, Cardone noted, is a version of what Saylor is doing at Strategy, but has warned firms against copying Saylor’s Bitcoin treasury strategy without having the foundation of a functioning business.

Meanwhile, Cardone himself is looking to put up combined mortgages against the projects. While Bitcoin mortgage products are not yet commonplace, he expects that to change once he has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in these hybrid projects.

“I’m talking about very friendly long-term debt, no margin calls. Seven to 10 years,” he said.

Cardone Capital’s Bitcoin Treasury and Tokenization Plans

Even as Cardone pushes Bitcoin, his core financial philosophy has remained largely unchanged. Less than a year ago, he yet again advised people to invest in themselves before allocating money to any other asset.

“Whether you call yourself a business or not, you’re in the business of being you. And if people don’t see you as a dependable, consistent, solution-oriented person, money’s never coming to you. Opportunity’s not coming to you.”

– Cardone on TheStreet Roundtable

Only once the foundation has been set, Cardone recommends “something that provides cash flow,” which then should be used to buy Bitcoin. “Because if the Bitcoin blows up, you need something to rely on to take care of your bills. I can’t eat Bitcoin,” he said.

Just earlier last month, the self-described billionaire had to sell his 2024 Bombardier Global 7500 private jet, which he called ‘the love of my life’. Cardone cited the Bitcoin crash as the reason for this decision, as it represented an attractive buying opportunity. Cardone’s post came on the day Bitcoin price fell to $60,000, a 52% drop from its ATH.

While market volatility can force tough decisions, Cardone’s long-term ambitions for Bitcoin remain intact. He is actually considering taking his firm public and being the world’s largest corporate Bitcoin treasury. “I’m going to build the largest real estate Bitcoin…publicly traded treasury company in the world,” he said in an interview with David Gokhshtein late last year.

More recently, Cardone shared plans to foray into the crypto industry beyond Bitcoin. On Feb. 26, he announced on X that Cardone Capital is planning to tokenize its $5 billion portfolio.

Tokenization is the conversion of real-world assets (RWA) into tokens, which has captured significant interest from institutional investors.

RWA tokenization has surpassed $26 billion across US Treasury debt, commodities, private credit, institutional alternative funds, corporate bonds, and public equity. Real estate is also gaining traction, but so far, only 64 properties, worth almost $375 million, have been tokenized, though Deloitte forecasts it will grow to $4 trillion by 2035.

And that’s why many firms are exploring similar routes, including the Trump Organization, which recently announced that it is tokenizing loan income rights for its new Maldives resort project. Then there’s Barry Sternlicht, who said his Starwood Capital, which boasts $125 billion in AUM, wants to tokenize assets but is facing obstruction from U.S. regulations.

As for Cardone Capital, the firm aims to provide investors with “collateral and liquidity in the secondary markets” and to become a “market leader” in this space.

“I [have] proven myself with a loyal retail audience of investors for 10 years distributing over $500 [million] of cash flow to our investors and the quality of investments we buy are ‘best in class’ traditionally reserved only for the super wealthy and institutions.”

– Cardone

Latest Bitcoin (BTC) News and Developments

Conclusion

Grant Cardone’s journey from accidental Bitcoin holder to hybrid fund architect reflects a broader shift in how traditional investors view digital assets. Once skeptical of crypto’s volatility, the real estate billionaire now channels rental income into systematic BTC accumulation and is planning to tokenize a $5 billion portfolio.

His bet is straightforward: real estate generates the cash, Bitcoin captures the upside, and tokenization unlocks liquidity. Whether that formula scales to a publicly traded treasury company or buckles under the next drawdown, as it did when he sold his jet, remains to be seen.