“Not at all,” says alternative investment advocate Adam Bergman, founder of IRA Financial. But people might want to do more of that research and investing themselves, and that’s why firms like his are targeted at “an underserved market for consumers that want to leverage self-directed investing as a core retirement strategy”.
I spoke with Bergman on the eve of the company’s release of its latest 2026 ‘non-traditional’ investment focus survey results. Responses from more than 700 clients contacted in November 2025 showed that alternative investments are rising quickly in prominence and acceptance in the modern marketplace.
Almost a third of respondents to the company’s recent outreach said cryptocurrency was one of their top investment focus areas for 2026. However, several other alternative investment options were highly favoured as well, from real estate (most popular at 58.5% of responses), public equities and ETFs (exchange-traded funds), private equity, and gold and other precious metals.
Per the survey, alternatives are taking up more space in long-term portfolios as well: “Nearly 59% of respondents reported holding more than 25% of their total investments in alternative assets, while over 78% hold at least a quarter of their total investments inside retirement accounts—signaling a convergence of alternative investing and retirement planning.”
Bergman, Canadian-born and an attorney by trade, started his company around 16 years ago to help individuals complement the somewhat rigid list of retirement-related investment products and services available from traditional Wall Street providers. Does he propose a radical shift in where people should put their post-career money now? Not necessarily, though he admits “Bitcoin is my own best-performing investment in my lifetime” in his own portfolio.
What Bergman does recommend, similar to many other financial advisors, is diversification – which now means much more in terms of choices for individuals and entrepreneurs than it did only a few years ago. His company provides opportunities for individuals and business owners to use some of the same familiar tools and structures like Individual Retirement Accounts (IRA) of the standard and Roth varieties, and 401()ks – but with more choices on specifying their composition.
The big difference of his company’s platform is it offers options for individuals to tailor their accounts more directly to their specific goals, objectives, and appetites than they can via company-sponsored plans. Even single-person LLCs can open and monitor “Solo 401(k)” accounts on their system, a service not widely offered by many other firms, he explained:
“I think it’s important to get exposure to new emerging assets, whether it’s digital, whether it’s investing in private AI companies. I just think you’re a better investor when you spread your assets around and you don’t just focus on one asset class.”
IRA Financial offers a flat-fee approach covering a number of services included to provide interested investors with access to various alternative investments like real estate, private placements, hard money loans, and fractional ownership of ‘private unicorns’: the hard-to-get or overly expensive stocks many hear or talk about, but few can easily buy and add to their own brokerage accounts.
“I would say the last five years to six years, we are seeing a lot of even the Baby Boomers – traditionally way more focused on Wall Street stocks and bonds and ETFs – have wanted to diversify more and look to do more direct hard assets,” said Bergman, specifically citing real estate, private placements, and hard money loans as options they’ve chosen.
The opportunities in alternative investments are especially compelling when taking a long-term view of investing, he explained, because there’s so much wealth in retirement accounts, and often more ‘space and time’ to justify a bit more latitude in where to put that money. “There’s approximately $18 trillion in 65 million IRAs (in the US),” Bergman stated, “[…] And when people look at diversifying, they look at their IRA, since it has a very long horizon – versus personal money, where they’re going to need that to cover mortgages, or, God forbid, medical payments – they’re willing to do alts, and they’re willing to diversify [through their retirement accounts].”
IRA Financial doesn’t aim to convince its clients to throw all their money into one investment scheme or another. On the contrary, Bergman himself is decidedly against hype and doesn’t encourage anything other than a well-conceived and executed personal wealth-building and post-career investing strategy. However, he does believe that self-directing one’s own retirement is a viable and sensible option for many. “I remember my colleagues, when I said I was gonna leave tax law and start a company and let people do ‘alts’ [alternative investments]in a retirement account, people looked at me like I was crazy. ‘Who’s going to buy real estate in an IRA or 401(k)? You sure you want to do this?’”
The move paid off for Bergman and his company, as it has increased its assets under administration by 25% in 2025 over the prior year, and now supports 26,000 client accounts nationwide. Bergman believes any person, of any age, should set standard savings goals they can live and grow with first, then aim to maximise earnings from pre-tax deposits in 401ks if they’re offered (even better with company matches provided) and/or by opening IRAs with tax free or deferred advantages.
Depending on the situation, Bergman said, moving beyond initial, commonly available investment vehicles may get people thinking about the other retirement-oriented options available for their remaining spare funds. When prospective customers do approach his company, he asserted, it’s often because they already have growth industries they’ve targeted or even specific companies in mind, yet their current brokerage platform doesn’t support such activities or transactions.
“A lot of our clients come to us with the investment already in mind, like ‘Oh, I want to buy the house next door,’ I want to buy an Airbnb on the coast,’ or ‘I want to invest in my friend’s business’ or things like that,” And it’s really easy to do, Bergman says, using his company’s platform.
Plus, retirement investing offers an exceptionally long horizon – at least for those under the age of 60, a figure which is skewing younger for IRA Financial these days with the firm seeing more clients in their fifties now than ever before, and Bergman expects this to keep trending downward. Even Millennials, he said, are joining the investment ranks in force now as they advance in age, employment, and earnings to spare beyond the day-to-day and other core expenses.
I asked, given the recent upheaval in the US and global economies, about the relatively lower levels of confidence expressed by younger clients in their future ability to pay their bills and earn a good living. Speaking on the reported embrace by many Gen Z (15-29 years of age) and Gen Alpha (roughly 15 or younger) of ‘financial nihilism’ or despair over potentially never being able to build long-term financial security in this modern era, Bergman actually expressed optimism for those in these age categories given the wide array of opportunities available to them.
Known for being more technically savvy than older groups, regardless of their views on money, he explained that with younger investors, “What we have found – and it’s not surprising – but Generation Y and Z are more forthcoming, and more comfortable doing ‘alts’ and doing stuff themselves,” when it comes to directing their investment choices.
To bolster his assertion, Bergman pointed to emerging generative AI tools now available to nearly everyone to accelerate common tasks and explore more details on investment topics and opportunities – including financial analysis and related activities. He sees these innovative products as a major advantage today’s new entrants to the workforce have available to them to help guide their investment journeys. He also noted that, statistically, people born in this century will live longer and thus typically will be able to take advantage of extended earnings horizons for investments they make now.
For many people except for those much closer to retirement, Bergman said, taking a small portion of their after-expenses-and-savings funds and allocating it to less traditional investment choices or vehicles (perhaps with more risk and/or greater potential return) may be a smart strategy that could really pay off for them. The biggest new ‘wrinkle’ in the field is in the additional investment types that might fit into that diversification strategy – widely researchable and available only now given the more thorough, transparent information, and accessibility to them provided by a burgeoning collection of online and other resources.
We asked about fraud risk and the fact that financial crime schemes and scams have absolutely exploded in the online (and offline) banking and investments world over the past few years. Bergman is concerned about this trend as well. He noted that in his own firm, AI-fueled deep fake impersonation attempts and related fraud threats have increased substantially. As a result, the company’s compliance team is constantly on high alert against the highly-motivated and sophisticated modern scammers’ attempts to steal from his clients. Yet he’s not dissuaded from the importance and the opportunity available through sensible consideration of all options available in the investment marketplace, today and into the future.
No matter what, Bergman concluded, investors should be smart about their money, wherever they elect to put it. Even more important for younger people, with so much time remaining before they leave the workforce, they should save first to maintain liquid ‘cushions’ for living and emergencies, then carefully weigh the alternatives for what’s left. “Especially in a retirement account where you have a life cycle of 30, 40, or 50 years, yes, you shouldn’t be in a rush. You should take your time. You should do your diligence. You should have a plan. You should hopefully have a financial advisor that can help you. And you should be thoughtful.”
