Word Play With a Warning

Robert Kiyosaki, the author of the best-selling personal finance book “Rich Dad Poor Dad,” is recasting a familiar piece of investing advice. In a post on X, he argued that many investors only believe they are protected, adding:

“De-Worse-ified means they think they are diversified, but they have all their diversified assets, such as gold, silver, Bitcoin, stocks, bonds, real estate, and oil, in one asset class.”

His point is that spreading money across many holdings does not help if those holdings all move the same way in a crisis. When a liquidity shock hits, correlations rise and supposedly diverse portfolios can fall in unison, leaving investors “de-worsified” rather than diversified.

The commentary is consistent with the stance Kiyosaki has pushed throughout 2026 as he recently named bitcoin among the safest investments for the year, grouping it with what he calls real assets. He has repeatedly listed gold, silver, oil, food, bitcoin, and ether as his preferred holdings, framing them as scarce stores of value that printed money cannot dilute.

He has paired that view with stark price calls, setting a target of $250,000 for BTC by year’s end alongside a longer-term goal of $1 million. At current levels, the move would require a gain of more than 230%. On the precious metals side of things, he recently suggested a possible $200-per-ounce silver level this year, calling the metal’s climb a signal of mounting financial stress.

Kiyosaki’s broader thesis is darker still, warning investors of a historic market crash that he ties to surging global debt and fragile private credit markets, urging followers to build income streams, learn trade skills, and accumulate hard assets before the storm.

Timing Is Everything

The “de-worsified” warning arrives at a tense moment for markets, especially as bitcoin posted its worst week since the 2022 collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX exchange, sliding below $60,000 as record exchange-traded fund (ETF) outflows and risk-off sentiment gripped the sector.

That is exactly the kind of broad drawdown scenario (where bitcoin, equities, and other assets fall together) that Kiyosaki has used time and again to illustrate his point.

That said, he has become an increasingly polarizing voice within the broader economic landscape, with skeptics pointing out that his crash predictions are frequent and his price targets aggressive (and that he has issued similar warnings for years). Supporters argue his core message of owning scarce assets, avoiding hidden correlation, and preparing for volatility is a reasonable hedge against an era of heavy money printing and rising debt.

Whether or not his $250,000 bitcoin call lands, the distinction he is drawing is a real one, as true diversification really does depend on owning assets that behave differently (not simply owning many of them). In a market where everything from gold to crypto to stocks can move on the same macro headlines, that lesson may matter more than any single forecast.

North Carolina lawmakers on Tuesday advanced a bill to protect consumers from cryptocurrency kiosk fraud.

House Bill 920, which passed the House with a 115-to-0 vote, aims to regulate an industry that its author claims is unregulated in the state.

“It’s the wild, wild West,” Rep. Neal Jackson, R-Moore, said during a committee discussion on Tuesday. “There is no regulation whatsoever in North Carolina. That’s what we’re trying to do here.”

Lawmakers cited a growing amount of fraud as the reason for the bill. About $389 million in losses were reported last year through cryptocurrency ATMs, a 58% increase from 2024, according to the FBI. The majority of those impacted are 60-plus.

The bill now goes to the Senate for consideration. It seeks to:

• Require licenses for all kiosk operators under the Money Transmissions Act.
• Place operators under the supervision of the Commissioner of Banks.
• Require fraud warnings and transaction receipts for every transaction.
• Require compliance and consumer protection officers that are always available.

It also seeks to place limitations on transactions in an effort to reduce fraud, requiring a $2,000 daily limit for the first 30 days for new customers and a $5,000 daily limit for existing customers, who would qualify after 30 days.

While other states have service fees between 20% and 30%, Jackson suggests putting a cap at 14%.

State Rep. Tim Longest, D-Wake, expressed concern about having the kiosks at all in the state. He said the bill’s protections could be stronger. 

“These machines can be the subject of fraud, basically facilitating fraud on seniors and other vulnerable individuals and in those cases,” Longest said. “… In crafting regulations, I think it’s important that we ensure consumers are adequately protected by those regulations and I do not believe that, under the language of the bill currently before you, those regulations are sufficient to protect consumers.”

Jackson pointed to this bill as an effort to regulate, not shut down, cryptocurrency kiosks in the state and said there are even more consumer protections in place.

David N. Tente, the executive director of the ATM Industry Association, said the bill — and others like it — is problematic because it requires operators to provide refunds to fraud victims in certain instances.  

“In most cases, the cash in the ATM/kiosk does not belong to the operator, which means that returning any of it would be, technically, theft,” Tente said. “If you give someone cash for something, and you change your mind after they leave, you probably won’t get it back.”

He added: “We certainly feel sorry for those being scammed, but there are very simple things you can do to avoid it.”  

Tente said these kinds of scams have existed for centuries, adding: “They are still here — just using different means of payment.”

The Orchard Vulnerability

Privacy coin Zcash (ZEC) surged on Tuesday, jumping 11.3% to $478 as it maintained a steady recovery that began shortly after it plunged to just under $265. At the time of writing (5:32 a.m. EST), the privacy coin’s latest climb pushed its gains since June 5 to approximately 80% and saw ZEC’s market capitalization reclaim the $8 billion threshold.

The coin, alongside rival monero, was one of a handful of altcoins that logged gains exceeding 5% even as bitcoin dipped below the $63,000 threshold. ZEC’s surge above $470 on June 9 resulted in $11.5 million in short positions on the coin being wiped out in 24 hours, compared with $2.43 million in liquidated long bets.

While Zcash has since wrestled back its top-dog status from chief rival Monero, the asset is still trading at a steep discount compared to its pre-June 5 peak of just over $600. Before the correction, ZEC was riding a powerful wave of momentum, fueled by a resurgence in the crypto-privacy narrative and high-profile endorsements from industry heavyweights like Arthur Hayes. However, that bullish trajectory ground to a sudden halt. The catalyst for the reversal was the unsettling discovery of a critical vulnerability within Zcash’s Orchard shielded pool—a zero-knowledge security flaw that had quietly lay dormant since 2022.

Despite this, supporters of the privacy coin believe the uncovering of the bug has not damaged ZEC’s long-term appeal. Posting on X, Eunice Wong insisted there is an extremely low likelihood an exploit was executed and said traders who offloaded their holdings had overreacted.

“Long-term thesis hasn’t changed. In an AI-driven world where every transaction is tracked, financial privacy will become the scarcest asset, and ZEC is still one of the strongest privacy plays in crypto. Catching this falling knife is going to look like a genius move,” Wong wrote.

Matthew Brienen, managing partner at Cryptocharged, said while he recently reduced his ZEC holdings, it was purely a risk-management decision rather than a change in conviction. Nevertheless, he offered an explanation for why caution is warranted even if there is no proof that ZEC was counterfeited.

“The Orchard bug isn’t a confirmed inflation event. It’s a confirmed inability to prove supply integrity. Those are not the same thing. The most important fundamental fact to remember is that turnstile accounting is not the same as proving Orchard balances are legitimate. You can track what entered. You can track what exited. That doesn’t prove every claim inside the pool was valid,” Brienen explained.

He added, however, that if counterfeit Orchard notes do exist, they could remain hidden until redemption is ultimately forced. According to Brienen, the recent price action suggests that is exactly what the market is trying to price in.