- Grant Cardone plans to tokenize Cardone Capital’s US real estate portfolio valued at roughly $5 billion.
- The move aims to give investors on-chain collateral and improved secondary market liquidity through blockchain-based tokens.
- Cardone Capital is combining long-term real estate cash flow strategies with direct bitcoin exposure, having already acquired 1,000 BTC.
- Real estate tokenization is gaining traction globally, though uneven regulation and thin secondary markets remain major hurdles.
Grant Cardone is preparing to take a major step into blockchain by tokenizing the real estate portfolio of Cardone Capital, valued at around $5 billion. The high-profile real estate investor is positioning his firm as one of the biggest traditional property players to experiment with bringing ownership records and investor rights onto public ledgers.
In a post shared on X on Thursday, the entrepreneur said that Cardone Capital intends to convert its existing real estate holdings into digital tokens that can serve as collateral and be traded on secondary markets. The initiative is pitched as a way to open up access to the firm’s multifamily and commercial assets while pushing Cardone Capital toward a leadership role in large-scale asset tokenization.
Cardone Capital’s $5 billion tokenization bet
According to Cardone, the plan is to tokenize the full real estate portfolio overseen by Cardone Capital, which includes multifamily apartment complexes and commercial properties spread across the United States. While he has not yet published a detailed technical roadmap, the public statements point clearly to a strategy of moving from traditional paper and database records to blockchain-based representations of ownership.
By turning interests in these properties into on-chain tokens, Cardone Capital wants to offer investors new forms of collateral that are natively digital and can, in theory, be transferred or pledged much more easily than conventional private real estate stakes. The tokens would represent claims on underlying assets or cash flows, though the exact structure will depend heavily on the regulatory framework chosen.
Cardone framed the initiative as part of a broader attempt to become a market leader in large-scale asset tokenization, moving beyond one-off experiments and instead applying the concept to a multibillion-dollar portfolio. For a sector that has typically moved cautiously with new technology, the scale of the proposal is notable.
Cardone Capital has built its business around income-generating multifamily and commercial properties across multiple US states, often attracting retail and accredited investors through syndicated deals and funds. Tokenizing these structures could, if executed correctly, change how those investors access liquidity and how new capital is raised for future acquisitions.
The firm’s public profile and Cardone’s online following also raise the likelihood that tokenized offerings could reach a wider pool of potential investors than typical private real estate vehicles, subject to securities rules and investor protections in the jurisdictions where the tokens are offered.
Blending real estate cash flows with a bitcoin strategy
Cardone’s move into tokenization comes as Cardone Capital deepens its broader crypto strategy, particularly around bitcoin. Earlier this year, reporting indicated that Cardone planned to channel real estate cash flows into BTC, using property income as a steady source of capital to accumulate the cryptocurrency over time.
In June, Cardone Capital purchased 1,000 BTC as part of this long-term approach and publicly stated that it intends to keep adding bitcoin to its balance sheet. That acquisition signaled a shift from traditional asset allocation toward a hybrid model where physical real estate and digital assets sit side by side.
The combination of on-chain tokenized property interests and direct exposure to BTC suggests that Cardone sees blockchain not just as a fundraising gimmick but as a core infrastructure layer for how value is stored, traded, and reported within his ecosystem. Tokenization could ultimately make it easier to settle transactions, distribute income, and integrate with other crypto-native financial products.
From an investor’s perspective, this approach could potentially offer a mix of real estate-backed income and digital asset upside, though it also introduces additional layers of volatility, operational risk, and regulatory uncertainty that traditional property funds may not face.
How real estate tokenization works in practice
More broadly, real estate tokenization refers to the process of representing ownership interests in property as digital tokens on a blockchain. Those tokens can stand for equity in a property-holding entity, a share of the rental cash flow, a slice of the underlying asset, or another clearly defined right, depending on how the deal is structured.
Supporters argue that putting these interests on-chain can streamline how ownership is recorded, how trades are executed, and how settlements are processed. Instead of dealing with long paper trails, manual reconciliations, and fragmented registries, a blockchain can function as a shared, tamper-resistant ledger for all participants.
Another commonly cited benefit is the potential for 24/7 secondary trading of tokenized interests, which could in theory make historically illiquid assets like private real estate more flexible for investors who might want to exit or rebalance without waiting for full asset sales or fund redemptions.
Tokenization can also lower the minimum investment size by fractionalizing ownership into many smaller units. That could open access to high-quality real estate deals for investors who previously would have been priced out or locked out by regulatory frameworks and high ticket sizes.
At the same time, industry observers highlight that technology alone does not guarantee liquidity. Without enough active buyers and sellers, secondary markets for tokenized real estate can remain thin, leading to wide bid-ask spreads or difficulty finding counterparties.
Regulatory and market hurdles still in the way
Despite the momentum around tokenization, the space is still dealing with uneven and often unclear regulation across different jurisdictions. Rules governing securities, investor accreditation, custody, and cross-border fundraising can vary widely, complicating efforts to scale a single model globally.
Professional services firm EY has noted in its analysis that regulatory frictions and limited secondary market activity remain central bottlenecks for tokenized assets. Even when deals are legally structured, building and maintaining an active market for those tokens is a separate challenge.
This reality means that initiatives like Cardone’s, while ambitious, will have to navigate a patchwork of compliance obligations, especially in the United States where securities regulators keep a close eye on any offering that might be construed as an investment contract.
Investor protections, disclosure standards, and responsible marketing practices around tokenized offerings are also under scrutiny, as authorities seek to prevent traditional risks from being amplified in digital form or obscured by technical jargon.
As a result, the long-term success of large-scale tokenization projects will likely depend on finding workable regulatory paths that satisfy authorities while still preserving some of the efficiency and programmability benefits that blockchain is supposed to bring.
Other real estate players testing tokenization
Cardone is not alone in exploring this territory. Other major real estate organizations are also looking into token-based financing and ownership models, often starting with specific revenue streams or development projects rather than entire portfolios.
The Trump Organization, the real estate group associated with Donald Trump and his family, has been reported to be tokenizing loan revenue tied to a new resort project in the Maldives. In that case, blockchain-based instruments would reflect income streams from the project’s financing arrangements.
Barry Sternlicht, the billionaire founder of Starwood Capital, which manages more than $125 billion in assets, has likewise spoken publicly about his company’s readiness to tokenize assets. However, he has emphasized that regulatory conditions in the US are holding back more aggressive deployments.
These examples indicate that while there is growing institutional interest in tokenizing real estate and related financial products, many of the largest players are still in the exploratory or pilot phase rather than full-scale rollouts.
For now, Cardone’s proposal to apply tokenization to a multi-billion-dollar portfolio of US multifamily and commercial properties stands out as one of the more assertive statements of intent from a high-profile retail-facing manager.
Market outlook for tokenized property
Even though the tokenized real estate market is still relatively small compared with the global property sector, forecasts point to substantial growth over the coming decade. Consulting firm Deloitte has projected that as much as $4 trillion worth of real estate could be tokenized by 2035.
That projection implies an annual growth rate of around 27% for tokenized property markets, assuming the necessary legal, technological, and market infrastructures continue to develop. Such growth would represent only a fraction of global real estate value but would still mark a significant shift in how ownership is packaged and traded.
For managers like Cardone, this expected expansion is an incentive to move early and establish a presence in tokenized markets, rather than waiting until standards are fully set by others. Being among the first large players could offer branding advantages and hands-on experience with the mechanics of blockchain-based issuance and trading.
At the same time, early adopters must be prepared to adapt quickly to changes in regulation, investor sentiment, and technical standards. Experiments may need to be iterated or even rolled back if compliance risks or operational issues emerge.
From the perspective of investors and regulators, the coming years will serve as a testing ground to see whether tokenized real estate actually delivers on its promises of efficiency and broader access, or whether the benefits turn out to be more incremental than transformative.
Cardone’s decision to pursue tokenization of Cardone Capital’s $5 billion portfolio, alongside an expanding bitcoin position, underscores how the line between traditional real estate investing and digital asset strategies is starting to blur. How well these experiments perform—in terms of compliance, liquidity, and real returns—will play a key role in shaping the next wave of innovation at the intersection of property, finance, and blockchain technology.
