Your portfolio: 10% to 40% crypto

Ric Edelman, the influential financial adviser, author, and crypto advocate, has raised his recommended minimum crypto allocation for conservative investors to 10%, though he believes a 25% allocation is more appropriate for most people.

The big picture: In a new white paper, Edelman, who founded an organization that educates other financial advisers on digital assets, argues that today's investors aren't properly factoring in the fact that they'll likely live 10% to 20% longer than their parents and grandparents.

• That changes how they need to factor in risk, he says.
• "Longevity and our changing demographics (including the reduction in births almost everywhere in the world) is changing everything, and will have profound impacts on society," Edelman tells Axios.
• "Living to 100 means 60 is the new 30," he says.

"Exponential technologies," Edelman argues, are going to continue driving the 21st century, and blockchain technology "and digital assets represent perhaps the best investment opportunity in that theme."

• Those opportunities can enable today's investors to build portfolios that can generate revenue for 50+ years, he says.

Context: Edelman created his education organization, the Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals, seven years ago. In 2021, he wrote "The Truth About Crypto," though at that time he only advocated for a 1% allocation.

• He co-founded his first advisory firm in 1986, which through a series of mergers has become Edelman Financial Engines. It manages around $270 billion in assets.

Zoom in: By and large, Edelman advocates for bitcoin, but he leaves the specific digital asset investment up to investors and their advisers.

• He notes that there are a number of ways now to get exposure, besides holding it directly, including ETFs, equity proxies, institutional platforms (such as retirement accounts) and risk management strategies that lean on crypto in various ways.
• He calls the "moderate portfolio" 50% stocks, 25% crypto and 25% bonds.
• "This balanced approach recognizes crypto's superior growth potential while maintaining diversification across asset classes," the white paper notes. (It says aggressive investors should go to 40%.)

Between the lines: Does six-figure bitcoin mean today's buyers are too late?

• Edelman notes that institutions are buying bitcoin now faster than the blockchain can print new coins. So he does not think the plateau is here.