Loading…

Asset Allocation by Age

📊 Asset Allocation by Age

How a hard-money portfolio can shift across the decades — an illustrative glide path

The Core Tradeoff

When you’re young, your biggest asset isn’t your portfolio — it’s the decades of earning ahead of you. That long runway lets you ride out volatility, so you can hold more growth assets and a larger Bitcoin sleeve.

As retirement approaches, the math flips. You have less time to recover from a drawdown, so the mix gradually tilts toward stability. The shift isn’t fear — it’s sequence-of-returns risk management.

The Glide Path

Illustrative mixes — not personalized advice. Each bar sums to 100%.

Equities Bitcoin Real Estate Bonds & Cash
20s — Maximum Runway
50%
25%
15%
10%
30s — Compounding Years
50%
20%
20%
10%
40s — Peak Earnings
50%
15%
20%
15%
50s — De-Risking Begins
45%
10%
20%
25%
60s — Capital Preservation
40%
5%
20%
35%
⚖️

Why the Bitcoin sleeve shrinks

A volatile asset with high upside belongs where you have time to absorb 60–80% drawdowns. The closer you are to drawing income, the smaller that sleeve should be — even if your conviction stays high.

🧭

Why bonds & cash grow

Stable holdings fund your first years of retirement spending without forcing you to sell growth assets into a down market. That buffer is the antidote to sequence-of-returns risk.

🏠

Why real estate holds steady

A hard asset that produces income and tracks inflation earns a durable seat across every decade — the ballast between high-growth Bitcoin and low-growth cash.

💡 The Austrian lens

In a world of persistent monetary debasement, holding 100% “safe” cash is its own risk — you lock in a guaranteed loss of purchasing power. A glide path isn’t a move from risky to safe; it’s a rebalancing of which risks you carry as your time horizon shortens.

🎯 Key Takeaways

1 Time horizon drives the mix. Decades of earning ahead = room for volatility. Fewer years = more stability.
2 The Bitcoin sleeve tapers, it doesn’t vanish. Size it to the drawdown you can survive without selling at the bottom.
3 Cash is a tool, not a destination. Build the buffer late so a bad first retirement year doesn’t force you to sell growth assets.
4 Rebalance the risks, not just the returns. Debasement makes 100% cash a slow loss — every decade carries risk somewhere.

Model your own glide path with the Modern Wealth Model FIRE calculators, part of the Halving House library.

Educational and illustrative only. Not personalized investment, tax, or financial advice.