In March, the DOL published a Compliance Assistance Release on offering cryptocurrencies within 401k plans in response to several retirement industry firms openly stating they are looking into ways to offer Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as potential plan investment options.  The release was basically a warning to plan fiduciaries that choose to offer such an option by stating “the Department has serious concerns about the prudence of a fiduciary’s decision to expose a 401(k) plan’s participants to direct investments in cryptocurrencies”.

This prompted Fidelity, which recently announced plans to provide just such a solution, to fire back at the DOL in an April 12^th letter offering that the DOL has overreached by pre-judging the offering of cryptocurrency investments as imprudent.  Further, Fidelity requested that the release be rescinded and asked the DOL to engage with the retirement plan industry to work on specific steps to ensure proper fiduciary oversight of this new and different asset class.  Whether this will spur more plan sponsors to explore this type of offering within their plans or have them specifically look to exclude or limit exposure to cryptocurrencies will be interesting to watch.

At this time, we have no plans to include such offerings due to the release and will wait and see how the DOL and the industry attempt to resolve before investigating further.

Please contact the GVA 401k Solutions Team with any questions.