‘I Think They Could Be Bigger Than Bitcoin’: Robert Kiyosaki Once Called Carbon Credits the Next Big Investment — Now They’re Down 99%
In November 2021, on his own Rich Dad Radio Show podcast, Robert Kiyosaki asked his guest to explain the asset he had already bought. "So, would you mind explaining what carbon credits are because I think I agree with you, I think they could be bigger than Bitcoin," he said to Marin Katusa, the resource investor who brought him into the trade. The episode aired on Nov. 17, 2021, one week after Bitcoin (BTCUSD) set what was then its record: CME's November 2021 bitcoin futures traded as high as $69,355 on Nov. 10, according to Barchart data. The Rich Dad Channel re-uploaded the episode to YouTube on Oct. 14, 2026, under a new title, which is why a five-year-old call is back in circulation.
Kiyosaki was not speculating from the sidelines. "Then he started talking to me about carbon credits. And I have no idea what carbon credits was, but I trusted Marin because I knew he was doing business. I know his reputation ... So, Kim and I invested in carbon credits," he said, referring to his wife and business partner Kim Kiyosaki. Later in the same show, he added: "We're not promoting anything ... Kim and I have invested with Marin. But we invested in because it solves a very big problem." He never said how much, and he has not disclosed since whether he still holds the position. The author of Rich Dad Poor Dad is candid about other numbers, telling interviewers he is $1.2 billion in debt, but he has never disclosed a carbon stake.
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The closest public price for what he described is CME's CBL Nature-Based Global Emissions Offset contract (N-GEO), which tracks the nature-based voluntary carbon credits Katusa was pitching. On Nov. 17, 2021, the December 2021 N-GEO contract settled at $13.58 a tonne, according to Barchart. On Oct. 15, 2026, the December 2026 contract settled at $0.13, with no open interest. That's a 99% decline. The N-GEO futures market did not just fall; by the latest settlement, it had almost no participants left.
Bitcoin, the asset the credits were supposed to outgrow, went the other way, though less dramatically than its reputation suggests. CME's November 2021 bitcoin futures settled at $60,485 on Nov. 17, 2021. The front-month contract settled at $82,430 on Oct. 15, 2026. That is a 36% gain over the same window on bitcoin futures at Barchart, and it says nothing about the swings in between. Bitcoin beat the thing that was going to be bigger than it; the larger returns were elsewhere.
Katusa's pitch, in Katusa's words, was about cash flow. "Companies are asking to buy it for the next 10, 20 years at three times higher. So, imagine if I could produce gold for $500 an ounce, which would be in the lowest quartile, and sell it for $ 2,000; that's a great cash flow opportunity," he said on the show. He added: "Nobody's talking about this yet, but that's how you make the big fortunes." The gold in his analogy did better than the credits. On Nov. 17, 2021, December 2021 gold futures settled at $1,870.20 an ounce; the December 2026 contract settled at $4,170.10 on Oct. 15, 2026, a gain of 123%.
The same episode carried a second call, about the market as a whole. Kiyosaki said: "Pretty soon you got this house of cards this big. And so, the question is, what do you invest in? I said, 'Well, right now I'd invest in standing clear of that house of cards.'" The S&P 500 E-mini contract for December 2021 settled at 4,686.25 on Nov. 17, 2021. The December 2026 contract settled at 7,791 on Oct. 15, 2026, a 66% gain. The two-close method hides the 2022 bear market between those dates, but anyone who stood clear in November 2021 and stayed clear missed the recovery that followed.
Some fairness is owed to the carbon call. The collapse in voluntary offset prices from early 2022 was a market-wide event, driven by a slowdown in corporate demand and public disputes in 2023 over whether widely traded nature-based credits delivered the emissions cuts they claimed. A futures price proxies the asset class, not the specific project the Kiyosakis bought into through Katusa, and nothing in the public record says what they paid or whether they sold. This piece does not say they lost money, because nobody outside the deal knows.
It does say, though, that Kiyosaki chose the wrong comparison. Five years after he put carbon credits next to bitcoin, the benchmark contract for the credits is quoted in cents, and the bitcoin contract is quoted above $82,000. Kiyosaki's calls are public and dated, so they're scoreable. Barchart ran the same exercise on his claim that the fastest way out of debt is more debt. The next time he names the asset class that will be bigger than bitcoin, the futures tape will be waiting.
On the date of publication, Caleb Naysmith did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. For more information please view the Barchart Disclosure Policy here.