Real estate investor Grant Cardone announced he is aggressively buying Bitcoin and shared a fair value estimation of $150,000 to $190,000. He believes pairing the asset with income-producing real estate could disrupt the $4 trillion real estate investment trust industry. This strategy follows a public challenge from economist Peter Schiff, who critiqued Cardone's hybrid model, arguing that combining real estate with Bitcoin "solves nothing" and questioning the necessity of the cryptocurrency in property investment structures.

Bitcoin-Real Estate Hybrid

In an interview on June 21, Cardone said traditional real estate investment trusts are structurally flawed because they are required to distribute most of their income. "It’s a broken model," Cardone said, referring to the REIT structure created in 1965. "They can’t keep currency on their balance sheet. They have no money for capex."

Cardone said real estate assets do not die during downturns, but ownership often changes when operators run out of liquidity. "If they had Bitcoin on their balance sheet for the last 12 years, they would not have a capex issue. They would not have a redemption issue," he said.

Cardone said his firm has completed six hybrid deals totaling more than $1 billion, with about $200 million in BTC purchased without leverage. The structure combines cash-flowing real estate with Bitcoin inside the same investment vehicle. He described one deal involving 366 apartments where each unit effectively came with exposure to three Bitcoin.

Fair Value and Strategy

"I get the upside of the Bitcoin and the positive cash flow," Cardone said, adding that investors also benefit from depreciation and tax advantages tied to the real estate. "Eighty percent of our investors own no Bitcoin," Cardone said, adding that several real estate investors bought Bitcoin separately after seeing his hybrid structure strategy.

He believes Bitcoin remains undervalued and should already be trading much higher. "I’d buy it right here," he said. "I’m buying like crazy." He said Bitcoin should be trading around $150,000 to $190,000 today, though he added that timing remains uncertain. Cardone compared Bitcoin to real estate, saying he buys assets below what he believes they are worth and waits for the market to recognize that value.

Strategy holds 846,842 Bitcoin worth roughly $55.8 billion, while SpaceX holds 18,712 Bitcoin bought at a $35,320 average cost basis. SpaceX's unrealized gains exceed 100%, whereas Strategy's average cost of $66,385 leaves it near breakeven. SpaceX treats its $1.29 billion position as a treasury reserve, potentially signaling mainstream institutional adoption.

Strategy Built A Financial Machine Around Bitcoin

Strategy owns 846,842 Bitcoin, representing over 4% of all Bitcoin that will ever exist and 67% of the top 100 institutional holders combined. The company raises capital through equity, convertible debt, and preferred stock, then converts everything into Bitcoin. When MSTR trades at a premium to Bitcoin NAV, it issues equity and buys more, a loop that works as long as Bitcoin appreciates and demand for leveraged exposure holds.

SpaceX’s approach is the opposite. It bought 18,712 Bitcoin for $661 million at roughly $35,320 per coin, held through Bitcoin’s slide below $60,000 without selling, and has not added a single coin since at least December 2025. The S-1 contains no stated acquisition plan, no custodian disclosure, and no strategic rationale. It simply holds Bitcoin as a treasury reserve, the way other companies hold gold.

The Cost Basis Gap Tells The Real Story

SpaceX sits on unrealized gains of more than 100% at current prices. Strategy’s average cost of $66,385 per coin leaves it near breakeven at current levels, underwater during any meaningful dip.

The structural risks around Strategy are real. STRC preferred stock now trades at $89, meaning investors who bought at par are down 11%. Every preferred issuance increases cash drain. The first Bitcoin sale in May rattled markets despite representing 0.004% of holdings. Fair-value accounting forced a $12.4 billion reported loss in Q4 2025 when Bitcoin fell.

Why SpaceX’s Small Position May Matter More

SpaceX treats its $1.29 billion Bitcoin position as less than 0.1% of its $1.8 trillion valuation. That normalization, a company building rockets and satellites that also holds Bitcoin as a line item, is what mainstream institutional adoption actually looks like.

How SpaceX handles Bitcoin’s fair-value swings in its first public earnings reports will signal whether the largest Bitcoin treasury ever brought to an IPO is a durable holding or a Tesla-style exit waiting to happen. Tesla sold most of its Bitcoin in 2022 to avoid earnings volatility. SpaceX held through worse. That distinction is what every institutional Bitcoin watcher is now tracking.