Grant Cardone says bitcoin-real estate strategy could outperform REITs, adds more BTC to treasury

Grant Cardone, a multibillionaire real estate investor, said Wednesday he added another $100 million in bitcoin as part of a strategy combining the asset with income-producing real estate, during a Fireside chat at Consensus Miami 2026.

“We just simply added another $100 million of bitcoin,” Cardone said, describing a recent property deal where $BTC was paired with a $235 million asset, a hybrid strategy he believes will outperform real estate investment trusts (REITs).

Cardone said traditional real estate investment trusts are structurally limited. “These companies can never, ever hold bitcoin on their balance sheet,” he said. “We believe by combining real estate and bitcoin […] I’ll end up with somewhere between a 22 and a 32% return.”

The property investor said the latest allocation builds on an earlier bitcoin purchase made in 2025, when Cardone Capital added 1,000 $BTC to its balance sheet, a position valued at just over $100 million at the time, bringing the firm’s total bitcoin exposure to roughly $200 million.

The real estate mogul said the structure combines two asset types within a single investment vehicle. “I have two assets that we just fused together in an LLC,” Cardone said.

He explained the approach also consists of introducing new investors to bitcoin. “Eighty percent of the people that invested in that fund own zero bitcoin,” he said, adding that the strategy does not involve putting real estate directly on blockchain rails.

“I’m not putting real estate on the blockchain,” Cardone said. “All I’m doing is buying a bunch of bitcoin and stuffing it into the discount gap.”

However, in February, In an X post, the investor said that Cardone Capital had plans to tokenize its holdings to give investors “collateral and liquidity in the secondary markets.” At the time, he also said the firm aimed to become a market leader in tokenizing assets at scale.

At Consensus, Cardone explained his hybrid strategy combines stable cash flow with bitcoin exposure. “If bitcoin goes to zero, I’m not getting rid of the real estate.” He said the combined model is intended to compete with existing real estate structures. “I’m going to rip [their] face off,” referring to competing investments without bitcoin exposure.