On a recent episode of The Iced Coffee Hour — a YouTube channel with 1.57 million subscribers — Grant Cardone made two significant admissions about the financial condition of his hybrid real estate and Bitcoin investment funds. The interview was recorded in Las Vegas.

Cardone is currently the defendant in a certified federal class action. On March 27, 2026, Judge John F. Walter of the United States District Court for the Central District of California granted class certification in Pino v. Cardone Capital, LLC, Case No. 2:20-cv-08499-JFW (KSx). The certified class includes investors who purchased interests in Cardone Equity Fund V and Cardone Equity Fund VI pursuant to their public offerings — a class of at least 3,494 members with rescission exposure of approximately $80 million.

Ten days after class certification was granted, Cardone’s lawyers at King & Spalding filed a petition to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit seeking immediate interlocutory review of the certification order. That petition — Case No. 26-2252 — is currently pending.

While that petition was pending, Cardone sat down with The Iced Coffee Hour.

The Bitcoin Admission

At the 1:07:07 mark of the interview, Cardone stated:

“We bought 2,000 Bitcoin last year and our average price is probably 92, somewhere between 88 and 92. So I’m underwater on the Bitcoin now.”

Bitcoin is trading at approximately $75,429 as of this writing. At an average entry price of $90,000 per coin, the 2,000 Bitcoin position has an approximate unrealized loss of $29 million.

This is not Cardone’s personal money. The transcript makes the fund structure explicit. Cardone describes a series of hybrid deals in which investor capital is deployed into LLCs combining real estate and Bitcoin. In one deal described at the 1:08:10 mark, Cardone outlines a structure of $72 million in real estate and $15 million in Bitcoin combined in a single LLC sold to investors. The largest deal described — at 1:09:06 — involved $230 million in real estate and $100 million in Bitcoin. Cardone states: “I paid for it, and then I called you guys up and said, ‘Hey, you want to invest in this deal?'”

Investors in these hybrid funds own both the real estate and the Bitcoin components. The Bitcoin position that is currently underwater belongs to them.

The Tax Position

At the 51:00 mark, Cardone discussed his personal tax position at length, confirming that he carries $2.2 billion in real estate debt generating approximately $110 million in annual deductible interest. He stated his personal tax bill last year was zero due to accelerated depreciation and interest deductions.

This is standard real estate tax strategy and entirely legal. It is also entirely separate from the issues in the class action.

The Pino litigation concerns whether Cardone made material misrepresentations and omissions to investors when marketing Cardone Equity Fund V and Fund VI — specifically whether he continued promising 15% internal rates of return on social media after the SEC had directed him in July 2018 to remove that projection from his offering materials, and whether he accurately represented responsibility for the Funds’ debt.

The district court’s certification order noted that the Ninth Circuit had already identified one piece of common evidence on the subjective falsity question: Cardone’s reaction to the SEC letter — removing the projection without any rebuttal or comment — was found to evince his subjective disbelief that investors would actually receive a fifteen percent IRR.

Interest deductions are not a defense to that finding.

The Procedural Posture

The 23(f) petition filed by King & Spalding on April 10, 2026 raises three arguments: that the district court misallocated the burden of proof on actual knowledge under Section 12(a)(2) of the Securities Act, that the court imposed an improperly high evidentiary standard on Cardone to defeat predominance, and that the court improperly used post-certification opt-out procedures to cure what Cardone characterizes as an irreconcilable conflict between the named plaintiff and the class.

The district court rejected all three arguments. The Ninth Circuit will decide whether to grant the petition, deny it, or set it for briefing.

Litigation of this nature and scale rarely proceeds to trial. King & Spalding argued in the petition that the $80 million rescission exposure creates substantial pressure to settle without relation to the merits. That pressure does not diminish when the defendant publicly confirms on camera that investor capital in his funds is currently underwater.

The Iced Coffee Hour interview is available on YouTube. The court documents are available on PACER.

Background: The Pino Class Action

The Pino litigation has a six-year history in the federal courts.

In September 2020, Luis Pino, an investor who had placed $5,000 in each of Cardone Equity Fund V and Fund VI in 2019, filed a putative class action alleging that Cardone and Cardone Capital made material misrepresentations and omissions in violation of Sections 12(a)(2) and 15 of the Securities Act of 1933.

The district court dismissed the complaint. The Ninth Circuit reversed in part and remanded. The district court dismissed the amended complaint. The Ninth Circuit reversed again in 2025, holding in Pino v. Cardone Capital, LLC, 139 F.4th 1102 (9th Cir. 2025), that the plaintiff had plausibly alleged three categories of actionable misrepresentations.

Luis Pino passed away in February 2023. His daughter Christine Pino was substituted as lead plaintiff and filed the operative second amended complaint.

The three categories of alleged misrepresentations are:

First, Cardone made projections about internal rates of return and distributions that were objectively and subjectively untrue. Specifically, in July 2018 the SEC reviewed Fund V’s draft offering circular, directed Cardone to remove a projection of a fifteen percent IRR, and determined he lacked any basis to make that projection. Cardone removed the projection from Fund V’s offering materials. When he subsequently solicited investors on social media, he promised the same or higher returns and did not inform them of the SEC’s contrary determination.

Second, Cardone made projections about annualized cash distributions of approximately five percent that were alleged to be misleading.

Third, Cardone misrepresented who was responsible for the Funds’ debt. In the caption of an Instagram post he stated: “Who is responsible for the debt? The answer is Grant!”

The Ninth Circuit found that all three categories were plausibly actionable and reversed the district court’s second dismissal. On remand, plaintiff moved for class certification. On March 27, 2026, Judge John F. Walter granted certification, defining the class as all persons and entities who purchased or otherwise acquired interests in Cardone Equity Fund V and Cardone Equity Fund VI pursuant to their public offerings. The class has at least 3,494 members. Plaintiff seeks rescission — return of invested capital plus interest, less distributions received — with aggregate exposure of approximately $80 million.

Cardone filed 226 sworn investor declarations opposing certification, arguing that most investors were satisfied with fund performance and did not want rescission. Judge Walter gave these declarations minimal weight, noting that no class member would be forced to rescind — rescission under Section 12(a)(2) is optional, not mandatory. Investors who prevail may choose whether to tender their interests.

The certification order is now before the Ninth Circuit on Cardone’s Rule 23(f) petition, Case No. 26-2252, filed April 10, 2026 by King & Spalding.