Sean Walters

I’ve spent a decade telling people to do what I do: "Buy and Hold." Now I've decided to list my entire real estate portfolio for sale and walk away. It started slow. The bills, the maintenance, the tax increases... but the final straw was when I tried to develop an ADU to do exactly what the city of LA claims it wants investors like me to do: Create more housing. You'd think they'd make it easier, but after two delayed inspections, a sewer pipe replacement that needed 75 days advance notice, and a city-owned tree that became my responsibility, I'd had enough. The identity of being a real-estate guy is very hard to walk away from, trust me. For a long time, I stayed just because real estate was my "thing." It’s how I started. It’s what I’m known for. It led to every good thing in my life. But that blinded me to the fact that just because something served me in the past, it doesn't mean things haven't changed in the present. The reality of 2026 finally stripped the emotion away. My LA rentals are netting about 4-5% after the constant background noise of taxes, insurance spikes, and repairs. Meanwhile, a risk-free Treasury pays 5%. The trade-off just doesn't make sense any more. I’m reallocating to a liquid portfolio that actually lets me focus on the work I love. I published a deep dive on my Substack about the ADU nightmare that broke my patience, the exact numbers behind the exit, and where I’m moving the money next to buy back my sanity. I'll drop the link here in a bit.

KuCoin took responsibility for my $300K liquidation and after a month of “we’ll fix it,” here’s what they finally offered me: To recover the money they caused me to lose, I need to generate: $700,000,000 to $1,000,000,000+ in referral trading volume so I can “earn it back” in commissions. Yes - their solution to a wrongful liquidation is: “Bring us a billion dollars in volume so you can fix our mistake.” Let that sink in. This wasn’t a normal loss. It wasn’t bad trading. It wasn’t a degen gamble gone wrong. It was a liquidation caused by broken infrastructure: KuCoin acknowledged all of this. They took responsibility. They told me they would work with me to resolve it. In the past month, I’ve done everything on my side, days of back and forth messaging and even took 2 IRL meetings with Kucoin. And after all that? Not even the fees I paid are refundable unless I bring them nine to ten figures worth of volume. If this is how an exchange handles a case they admit fault on, imagine how many users get brushed off when the situation isn’t escalated. I’m still waiting for a real resolution.

Crypto has had a rough year. Maybe we should launch something to fix it.

JUST IN: 🇺🇸 Treasury Secretary Bessent says President Trump is preparing an executive order forcing banks to collect citizenship data from customers.

Kraken Security Update We are currently being extorted by a criminal group threatening to release videos of our internal systems with client data shown if we do not comply with their demands. It’s important to start with the most important points: our systems were never breached; funds were never at risk; we will not pay these criminals; we will not ever negotiate with bad actors. Kraken identified and shut down two instances of inappropriate access to limited client support data. In February 2025, we received a tip from a trusted source regarding a video shared on a criminal forum that appeared to show access to our client support systems. We immediately launched an investigation and quickly identified the individual involved as a member of our support team. Their access was revoked immediately, a full investigation was conducted, additional security controls were put in place and a limited number of affected clients were notified. Since then, we have been collaborating with industry partners and law enforcement to investigate and disrupt insider recruitment efforts targeting not only crypto companies, but also gaming and telecommunications organizations. More recently, we received another tip, along with a new video showing similar activity. We quickly identified the individual involved and terminated their access. As before, we acted immediately to revoke access, conduct a full investigation, and notify the small number of affected clients. Across both incidents, only a very small number of client accounts were potentially viewed - approximately 2,000 in total (0.02% of clients). Shortly after access was terminated, we began receiving extortion demands. The criminals threatened to distribute materials from both the February 2025 incident and the recent incident to media outlets and on social media if we did not comply. We will not pay these criminals. Based on intelligence gathered across both incidents, along with extensive ongoing analysis, we believe there is sufficient evidence to support the identification and arrest of those responsible. We are actively working with federal law enforcement across multiple jurisdictions to pursue all individuals involved and bring them to justice. Due to the ongoing investigation, we cannot share additional details at this time. However, anyone with relevant information is encouraged to contact us directly. The security of our clients is our highest priority, and we remain fully committed to combating the growing global threat of insider recruitment and constantly enhancing our security practices to combat new threats. Note: If you are a client potentially affected by this, you've already been notified.