Experts say reports that the Trump administration is considering opening 401(k) plans to alternative assets—including cryptocurrencies—reflect a maturation of the digital asset industry.
Formal Recognition and Maturation
The Trump administration’s reported plans to open the $9 trillion U.S. retirement market to alternative assets, including gold and cryptocurrencies, are seen as recognition that the management of American savings needs to evolve.
While there has been no new update on when President Donald Trump is set to sign an executive order opening 401(k) plans to these alternative investments, since The Financial Times reported on the news, cryptocurrency industry players are relishing the prospect of such substantial long-term funds flowing into the market.
Others, however, believe such a move comes with far greater benefits for an industry that, until recently, faced scrutiny from an administration less receptive to cryptocurrency’s offerings. Since the start of the Trump administration, the cryptocurrency industry has scored a series of wins, with a number of landmark lawsuits or investigations into digital asset companies being dropped.
Gaining access to the U.S. retirement market would be a major turning point, as it would imply formal recognition of digital assets by the American establishment. Andrei Grachev, managing partner of DWF Labs, explained to Bitcoin.com News why such recognition is groundbreaking for the digital asset industry.
“Retirement portfolios are built around long-term trust, not short-term risk,” Grachev said. “For crypto to be considered in that context already reflects a shift in perspective, suggesting that parts of the industry are maturing into real financial infrastructure.”
The DWF Labs executive’s perspective is shared by others, including Tezos co-founder Arthur Breitman, who sees opening 401(k) plans to cryptocurrency as setting a precedent for the legitimacy of these assets.
Ran Hammer, vice president of business development at Orbs, weighed in by highlighting why U.S. savers, who have seen the real value of their savings erode due to quantitative easing, should be enthused by this prospect.
“Allowing retirement plans to include bitcoin and other cryptocurrency investments will give them a very strong tool to hedge against U.S. dollar devaluation,” Hammer said.
However, the Orbs vice president cautioned asset managers against allocating retirement funds to meme coins. Instead, Hammer asserts that their focus should be “on large, well-established cryptocurrencies, primarily bitcoin and ethereum.” Grachev, meanwhile, said setting a high bar for digital assets seeking retirement allocation is essential “for stability, disclosure, and operational clarity.”
Risks and Industry Evolution
While the digital asset industry has largely welcomed the idea, critics warn of potential downsides such as higher fees and less transparency for private assets. Tobias van Amstel, co-founder and chief executive officer of Altitude Labs, agrees there are risks but rejects the notion that the underlying technology of digital assets poses such a risk. He said:
“Crypto is still a minefield for the average investor: high risk, hard to evaluate, and full of noise. If investors don’t do proper due diligence, we’ll see people exposed to scams or projects with no real fundamentals. That’s the real risk here, not the tech.”
Breitman warned that giving people more options will inevitably lead to many making worse decisions. However, he argued that the alternative—what he called “paternalistic regulation”—is even worse. He concluded that “the government should have no part in telling people what to do with their money.”
Meanwhile, these experts concur that opening the retirement market to cryptocurrency will fundamentally shift the industry from a speculative, retail-driven focus to one prioritizing long-term value. Access to retirement capital will demand a new level of credibility, which requires building more robust custody frameworks and establishing clearer legal structures.
It also means developing digital assets that are inherently dependable and auditable for sustained, long-term use. Furthermore, the industry will have to move beyond mere token speculation and toward risk-managed yield, transparent collateral, and compliant design.
The experts also assert that the need to cater to retirement funds will force builders to focus on financial structure rather than just token mechanics. This, in turn, will likely accelerate development in critical areas such as real-world collateralization and the refinement of issuance models. The goal isn’t just inclusion, but cryptocurrency becoming a “stable component” of the broader financial system.
Finally, opening 401(k) plans to cryptocurrency will encourage a pivot from short-term speculation to an emphasis on long-term value holding. This is particularly relevant for sectors such as decentralized finance (DeFi), where token value is intrinsically linked to sustained protocol usage and fee generation, rewarding development focused on genuine adoption rather than just hype cycles.
Source: Bitcoin
