‘Take Rent, Invest That’: How Grant Cardone Is Mixing Real Estate and Bitcoin
Your grandma may never fully comprehend Bitcoin, but she probably understands why an apartment building has value, according to real estate entrepreneur Grant Cardone.
Combining Bitcoin and real estate into a single offering, Cardone told Decrypt in Las Vegas last week that his new line of funds is aimed at investors who may have little to no Bitcoin exposure. The company, Cardone Capital in south Florida, has $5 billion in assets under management.
“You live in it, you rent it, you drive by it, and a lot of people have made money on it,” Cardone said. “If you could add Bitcoin to it as well, you’re gonna hurt your cash flow a little bit, but you’re gonna have your tenants buying your Bitcoin for you.”
As the CEO of Cardone Capital, the South Florida property entrepreneur recently announced the debut of the 10X Miami River Bitcoin Fund. A 346-unit property sitting on the Miami River serves as the fund’s “anchor asset,” while monthly income is set aside for “strategic Bitcoin purchases.”
The fund tied to the Miami River property represents Cardone’s fourth investment vehicle combining real estate, a 2,000-year-old asset class, with Bitcoin, a nascent and volatile investment that could theoretically juice the long-term returns. For a property located up north in Fort Lauderdale, Cardone plans on letting tenants become investors, too.
“Now Michael Saylor is going to tell me, ‘Yup, you got plumbing and a roof and tenants and termites and taxes,’” he added, referring to Strategy’s co-founder and executive chairman. “The best Bitcoin you will ever have in your life is the Bitcoin that someone else gives you.”
In some ways, Cardone’s fund parallels Bitcoin treasury companies like Strategy, formerly MicroStrategy, that are hoovering up Bitcoin using corporate debt. Cardone argued, however, that real estate has properties as an investment that can serve as a counterbalance.
“We have something that [has] cash flows, something that doesn’t; something that’s liquid, something that’s not; something that’s very stable and something that’s very volatile; and we merge them together in one fund,” he explained.
The 10X Miami River Bitcoin Fund is only available to accredited investors that earn over $200,000 a year. Cardone added that his investment firm is interested in exploring “mortgage products that don’t exist today,” combining Bitcoin with real estate.
When it comes to the Blackstones and Camdens of the finance world, Cardone said that many real estate investors are unable to move as quickly as he is because of red tape. Eventually, he believes they could become involved in mixing Bitcoin with real estate, too.
“They know what I’m doing, and they just can’t make the transition fast enough,” he said. “So I probably have a three or four year head start.”
Edited by James Rubin
