Super funds just posted another solid year. Here’s what they’re leaving on the table

We’re now in October and Australia’s superannuation funds are still breaking out the champagne after another year of strong returns. The median balanced option delivered around 10 per cent in FY25 – comfortably above target. But while returns are good, there is an argument increasingly difficult to look past: they could have been even better.

Take gold. A simple portfolio that included a modest gold sleeve returned over 18 per cent in FY25, almost double what the median super fund delivered. Gold did what it has always done: provided ballast when markets get rocky. Yet most large funds have no gold allocation at all.

Or take Bitcoin. A modest 1 to 5 per cent allocation, dollar-cost averaged over the past five years, would have added tens of billions to Australians’ retirement savings. Bitcoin is no fringe experiment. It’s one of the best-performing assets of the past decade. To ignore it is not prudence – it’s institutional caution that’s starting to look outdated.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth for super funds: 10 per cent is fine. Great, even. But even with a small allocation to assets like Bitcoin or gold, 15 per cent was on the table –so members missed out.

The problem is structural. Big Super lacks the ability to give members access to cutting edge opportunities and potentially outsized returns. This is critical in a world of cost-of-living pressures and macroeconomic uncertainty. Rather than sticking with the old and familiar, it’s time those responsible for a significant portion of our citizens’ retirement pool embrace innovation and embrace the wealth-creation opportunities of digital assets.

Even the world’s most traditional investors have embraced the new paradigm. Harvard’s $50 billion endowment fund disclosed in mid-2025 that it had invested about $116 million into Bitcoin. That position now ranks among Harvard’s top five single-asset holdings, larger than its allocation to gold and just behind its allocation to Microsoft and Amazon.

This is the same university that once called Bitcoin an environmental disaster and forecast its collapse to $100. So, while the brains at Harvard University are saying Bitcoin has no value, the people charged with managing their endowment seem to think otherwise. Quite a contradiction.

What the money managers are signalling is what many in global markets already understand: Bitcoin has matured into a regulated, mainstream asset worthy of institutional portfolios. If Harvard’s endowment can move on this, there’s no reason Australia’s super funds can’t too.

In today’s environment, portfolios that include alternative assets like Bitcoin and gold are the ones that win. Ignoring them leaves real money on the table.

Super funds have a choice: Continuing to feel satisfied for hitting average or recognise that portfolios built for the next decade will look nothing like those built for the last.

Platforms like MHC exist to provide compliant, scalable, institutional-grade access to Bitcoin and other digital assets. The infrastructure is here. The regulatory frameworks are solidifying. The world is marching on.

The only question is when Trustees will move with the times to best serve their members’ interests.

Because in the end, the numbers don’t lie. Super funds are still leaving billions on the table.