Kiyosaki now fears the worst crash since the Depression

Robert Kiyosaki has been predicting financial disasters for the better part of two decades, and his track record on timing is, to put it gently, inconsistent. The bestselling author has called for crashes that never arrived and issued warnings that proved years premature. None of that has stopped him from making his boldest call yet.

In a series of posts on X stretching from late 2025 into April 2026, Kiyosaki declared that a collapse rivaling the Great Depression could strike within the next two years. He pointed to soaring government debt, record consumer borrowing, and what he calls an “Everything Bubble” as the fuel for a historic reckoning.

Dismissing Kiyosaki outright would be easy, except that several of the data points underpinning his argument are difficult for any serious observer to ignore. The question is whether the numbers add up to the catastrophe he envisions.

Kiyosaki predicts a 2026-2027 crash fueled by $39 trillion in national debt

On April 27, 2026, Kiyosaki posted on X that a market crash in 2026-2027 could spiral into a depression, urging his followers to hold cash and accumulate discounted assets like Bitcoin, Gold, and Silver, according to Yahoo Finance.

He framed the potential downturn as a buying opportunity rather than a reason to panic, citing his personal experience profiting during the crashes of 1987, 2000, 2008, and 2022. The centerpiece of Kiyosaki’s argument is the scale of America’s federal borrowing, which has passed $39 trillion, according to Treasury Department data.

He described the United States as a “debtor nation” in a February 26, 2026, post on X, arguing that the growing federal deficit would eventually undermine the dollar’s purchasing power and trigger a broader economic collapse.

Consumer debt, stock valuations add weight to warning

The government’s balance sheet is only part of the picture that Kiyosaki paints, and the household side is equally concerning by any objective measure. Total U.S. household debt reached a record $18.8 trillion during the fourth quarter of 2025, Federal ReserveBank of New York data showed. 

Credit card balances have grown particularly fast, with 61% of credit cardholders carrying credit card debt as of December 2025 having held it for at least a year, up from 53% in late 2024, according to Bankrate’s 2026 Credit Card Debt Report. Stock market valuations add another layer of concern for investors weighing Kiyosaki’s predictions against the available data. 

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The Shiller PE ratio sits above 40 in 2026, a level the metric has reached only once before in its 155-year history during the dot-com bubble of 1999–2000, when it peaked at 44.19, according to GuruFocus.

Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon warned on November 4, 2025, at the Global Financial Leaders’ Investment Summit in Hong Kong that ‘it’s likely there’ll be a 10% to 20% drawdown in equity markets sometime in the next 12 to 24 months,’ according to Fortune. 

That assessment is far more measured than Kiyosaki’s Depression-level forecast, but it signals that institutional leaders share at least some of his directional concern.

Gold, Bitcoin, and the alternative assets Kiyosaki is betting on

For Kiyosaki, the prescription for surviving a crash has remained remarkably consistent over the years: abandon traditional assets like stocks and bonds and load up on Gold, Silver, and Bitcoin. 

He has called Gold “God’s money” and Bitcoin “people’s money,” and he predicted in a January 26, 2026, post on X that Gold prices would eventually reach $27,000 per ounce, a figure that would require the metal to increase roughly fivefold from its recent highs. Kiyosaki is not alone in his bullishness on Gold, even if his price target stands far above the Wall Street consensus. 

“You don’t have to be a victim of the ‘Everything Bubble’ as the bubbles burst and lead to the greatest depression in world history.  You can still be a winner even as the world economy crashes,” saidRobert Kiyosaki, Author of Rich Dad Poor Dad.

Ray Dalio, founder of the world’s largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, said Gold remains the safest form of money in the current environment during a conference in Dubai, Business Insider reported. 

UBS raised its 2026 Gold price target to $6,200 per ounce for the March, June, and September 2026 windows (with a slight pullback to $5,900 expected by year-end after U.S. midterm elections). Additionally, Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan suggested at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit in October 2025 that Gold could eventually reach $10,000, Kitco reported.

Kiyosaki’s track record of predictions raises questions about timing

The most significant caveat to Kiyosaki’s warning is his own history of premature and sometimes inaccurate calls. He published Rich Dad’s Prophecy in 2002, predicting a market meltdown that took six more years to materialize in a form very different from what he described. 

He has called for crashes in multiple years when markets instead climbed to new highs, a pattern that has drawn legitimate criticism from financial professionals. His credibility also took a hit when reports surfaced that he had sold Bitcoin despite publicly urging followers to hold the cryptocurrency, Seoul Economic Daily noted. 

Kiyosaki responded that the sale funded new investments in surgery centers and outdoor advertising, not a bearish shift on Bitcoin itself, but the contradiction between his public advocacy and private actions has fueled skepticism about his motives.

Affordability data shows American households are already under severe strain

Regardless of whether Kiyosaki’s Depression scenario plays out, the financial stress facing ordinary Americans is already substantial enough to warrant serious attention from anyone managing a household budget.

A survey by The Century Foundation found that nearly two-thirds of Americans switched to cheaper groceries or reduced their food purchases, and 34% reported skipping a meal in the past year.

The average APR on new credit card offers stands at 23.75%, according to LendingTree, and has held steady after declining from a record 24.92% in September 2024, still high enough to make revolving balances the most expensive form of debt most consumers carry.

For the nearly one in five borrowers who told Bankrate they do not believe they will ever pay off their credit card balances, the prospect of rising interest rates or a recession landing on top of that burden is deeply concerning.

What Kiyosaki’s crash warning means for your financial planning in 2026

Kiyosaki’s warning sits at the intersection of bold speculation and verifiable economic strain. His prediction of a Depression-level collapse remains uncertain, particularly given his uneven record on timing, yet the underlying data cannot be dismissed. 

Rising national debt, elevated consumer borrowing, and stretched market valuations all point to a system under pressure, even if they do not guarantee a catastrophic outcome. Ultimately, the outlook is defined less by certainty and more by competing interpretations of the same economic signals, leaving the trajectory of the coming years open.

Related: Robert Kiyosaki says only 6 assets will survive 2026