A cutout of US President Donald Trump holding a Bitcoin.
AFP via Getty Images
“Most Americans have been trained and lied to by the big financial institutions that all you can do are traditional assets in your IRA or 401(k),”
Adam Bergman said on the On The Margin podcast. “And for the last fifty years that has not been the case.”
Bergman runs IRA Financial, a self-directed retirement custodian that says it administers more than $7 billion across upward of 27,000 accounts. This week it is launching a rebuilt crypto platform that lets investors trade nearly 100 tokens in real time inside a retirement account, in the same login that holds their stocks, real estate, gold and private equity.
“How did they get rich? It wasn’t just sitting back and buying stocks,” he said of his wealthiest clients. “They got rich by buying private assets, like private businesses, like private equity investments, like hedge funds, like Bitcoin. That’s how real people get rich. So we’ve all been lied to.”
“When you have all your funds in the S&P 500 or in mutual funds, ETFs, you’re not diversified,” he said. “Because you basically own seven companies.” That argument is now pointed at the $49.1 trillion U.S. retirement system, the largest pool of savings Americans hold, according to the Investment Company Institute. “It’s the largest pool of savings for Americans,” Bergman said. “Because your money grows without tax.”
The door Washington just opened
In March 2022 the Department of Labor told 401(k) fiduciaries to use “extreme care” before offering crypto. On May 28, 2025, it rescinded that guidance. Ten weeks later President Trump signed an executive order, “Democratizing Access to Alternative Assets for 401(k) Investors,” telling regulators to clear the way for private equity, real estate and digital assets in workplace plans. The generation set to inherit roughly $15 trillion and trust crypto more than banks will find it on the menu, next to the S&P 500.
Bergman’s frustration predates the policy shift. “I’m mad at the large institutions, the Fidelities, the Schwabs, because they’ve essentially walled off alternative assets to retirement accounts for no reason,” he said. “They claim it’s too risky and it’s untrue. They just don’t make money when people buy real estate or gold.” The law never required the wall. “When IRAs were created in 1974, there’s only three things you cannot do,” he said. “Can’t buy life insurance, can’t buy collectibles like art. And thirdly, you can’t do any self-dealing transactions.” Everything else has always been allowed.
One account, one fee
IRA Financial’s platform runs stocks, ETFs and mutual funds through Interactive Brokers at zero commission, and crypto through Bitstamp and Robinhood at a buy-side commission of up to roughly 1%, with no holding fee. Real estate, hard money loans, private equity and metals sit in the same account, for a flat fee under $500 a year.
“We’re literally the only platform in the country where you can do everything, stocks, bitcoin, real estate, all in one platform for one low flat fee,” Bergman said. “You can’t do this at Vanguard, Schwab, Fidelity. You can’t do it anywhere.” The “only” is his claim. Rivals such as iTrustCapital and Alto already sell crypto inside an IRA, usually at a flat 1% per-trade fee. What is uncommon is putting tokens, stocks and alternatives in one account with no per-trade cut.
The asset-based fees most of the industry charges set him off. “That’s criminal,” he said. “Why should I take money from you because you’re a smart investor? Pay me for the administration, but don’t pay me because you’re a good investor.”
A tax lawyer who bet on Bitcoin
Bergman spent eight years as a New York tax attorney before quitting in 2008 and bootstrapping the firm, taking no salary for five years. He bought his first Bitcoin in 2015, against his own advisor’s advice. “I told my financial advisor, I’m gonna put X dollars into Bitcoin. He’s like, Adam, you’re insane. Don’t do it. He goes, it’s a total scam,” Bergman recalled. “I said, I don’t think so.” The math was his usual one. “I’m only in my early 40s. I have 20 to 30 years to make it up. Big deal,” he said. “Everything I do comes down to risk versus reward.” IRA Financial, he says, was among the first firms in the country to let retirement accounts hold Bitcoin that year.
“I love Peter Thiel. He has a five billion dollar Roth IRA. He probably is one of the biggest Roth IRAs in the world,” Bergman said. ProPublica reported in 2021 that Thiel’s Roth, seeded with founder shares worth under $2,000 in 1999, had reached about $5 billion by the end of 2019, untaxed. Few accounts will ever look like that.
What the pitch leaves out
“You’re on your own,” is how Ed Slott, one of the country’s most-cited IRA experts, describes a self-directed account. The SEC, FINRA and NASAA have all warned that these accounts open the door to a “broader” and “potentially riskier” menu, and that custodians do not vet what clients buy.
IRA Financial knows the danger first-hand. In February 2022, hackers drained roughly $36 million in Bitcoin and Ether from customer accounts the firm held at Gemini, using a master API key to slip past account-level security. The stolen funds went through Tornado Cash. IRA Financial sued Gemini. It is the same custody-concentration risk now hanging over the spot bitcoin ETF market, where most assets sit with a single custodian. The crypto trap is simpler still. Take personal possession of the keys to coins your IRA owns, and the whole account can be disqualified, decades of tax shelter collapsing into one taxable year.
Bergman is unmoved. He keeps 50% to 60% of his own money in alternatives, he says, and he is writing a book arguing the wealthy do the same. “There’s no reason that I cannot buy alternative assets like real estate or gold in my Vanguard IRA account or Schwab or Fidelity,” he said. “Why are the big banks blocking me from doing it?” Then, the part that took longest. “It took me sixteen years to get here,” he said.