Social security is different from retirement savings accounts. If the government starts confiscating privately held 401k accounts en masse for some reason there’s probably bigger things to worry about, like iodine pills and canned beans
damn you’re right, i crossed my wires there for one moment. but, like, doesn’t that just mean the government doesn’t have to do anything? the industry will be deregulated into the crypto bubble and the 401k system will be one tether audit away from replaying the 2008 housing crisis.
If 401k accounts consistently 2008 on people, no one will bother putting money into them and the system will collapse. Given that’s literally a multi-trillion dollar industry, I’d like to cope and believe that the finance ghouls in charge are bright enough to not kill their golden goose by going all-in on $420KEK or whatever.
well the housing market is worth what, 100 trillion?
I’d like to cope and believe that the finance ghouls in charge are bright enough to not kill their golden goose by going all-in on $420KEK or whatever.
The difference is that subprime mortgages were being repackaged as safe investments and then used as fodder in retirement accounts. I severely doubt anyone’s going to try something similar with crypto (again, coping that Wall Street is at least smart enough not to shit in their own food here, this comment will age poorly, etc etc)
That’s the Greenspan Tragedy isn’t it? Rationally and taken as a whole the finance, banking and pensions system wouldn’t even think of doing this. But individually, Golden Parachutes can take managers very far indeed.
That said, there’s no real reason to doom over this sort of ultimate financial fuckery. It’s like trying to doomsday prep for thermonuclear war. Ya ain’t surviving that.
I severely doubt anyone’s going to try something similar with crypto
I have no doubt it will be tried. It may exist already, there are publicly tradable corporations that have large crypto holdings, basically copying MicroStrategy’s strategy, and turning themselves into de-facto crypto ETFs.
what do you mean? as soon as 401ks go into crypto there are gonna be some massive rug pulls and that will be the end of that? i dunno… crypto is sketchy as fuck
This relies on people actually going out and buying ruinous amounts of crypto in their 401ks, which I don’t see happening en masse. Most people just set and forget on a single target date fund, probably the Qualified Default Investment Alternative for their plan. Even if the Department of Labor were to do away with the current regulations on QDIA diversification and option type to get people into crypto by default, we’d also need to see plan administrators who even want to do that, and I don’t think we’re going to see that from the likes of Fidelity and Vanguard.
This is not about individuals gaining the ability to use their pre-tax 401k dollars to buy crypto, it’s specifically giving fund managers the permission they’ve actually already had for years, to expose their funds to high-volatility investment vehicles. Crypto, gold, silver, private equity investing into leveraged buyouts of companies to rip the copper out of the walls, etc.
Fidelity, Vanguard, et al. are exactly who asked for this and have already been doing this for years.
If they’ve already functionally had permission, what’s the meaningful change here?
I also find myself skeptical that the barrier to high volatility investments being promoted in 401ks is that they didn’t have the right stuff to push. There’s been nothing functionally stopping fund administrators from offering gold ETFs for the two decades they’ve been available, for instance, it’s just not terribly common.
Yes, this does in fact appear to be another useless retread EO, I think it’s another example of the administration trying to replicate existing legislation in order to signal their support for a concept or will it into happening.
most people probably aren’t really managing their 401ks, they just have part of their check put in and they don’t think about it… the fund managers in the other hand might be enticed by the higher managing fees to take a bit more risk
But can’t that be said of any publicly traded investment with more risk and/or higher expense ratio? What’s different here that’s going to make this uniquely worse?
I think because stocks and bonds have pretty well defined risk categories. You can choose to go risky or you can choose to go safe.
Crypto is extremely volatile though and there isn’t realy much in the way of less risky investing. Maybe it will be offered as high-risk only? Maybe it will be rolled into broader investment portfolios to hedge the risk? Maybe the whole damn country will just get rug-pulled? Who knows?
The fact that it’s even being considered tells me there’s something wrong going on here and it won’t be good for the people as a whole which in my experience is a pretty safe bet.
I mean yeah that’s how to turn money into nothing, but how do we get to that point? 59% of Vanguard plan participants only hold a single target date fund according to page 6 of this 2025 report, and I really doubt much of the remaining 31% who use more plan offerings (making them less diversified, paradoxically) will end up investing a significant amount in crypto or crypto funds.
probably not directly, no, but it would be called like “etf of risky investment, 20% yoy perfomance”. if they get even 5% of usa market, it would be more than neough for crypto
“even 5% of USA market” is doing a lot of work there. All the sector funds in the vanguard plans (what seems like the closest thing to compare crypto to, particularly the precious metals one) amount to 1% usage by participants, and every sector besides real estate has <0.5% usage.
What would the mechanism for this be?
‘we can no longer fund social security after the rugpull crisis of 2027’
Its hilarious that this is realistically possible to happen.
Social security is different from retirement savings accounts. If the government starts confiscating privately held 401k accounts en masse for some reason there’s probably bigger things to worry about, like iodine pills and canned beans
damn you’re right, i crossed my wires there for one moment. but, like, doesn’t that just mean the government doesn’t have to do anything? the industry will be deregulated into the crypto bubble and the 401k system will be one tether audit away from replaying the 2008 housing crisis.
If 401k accounts consistently 2008 on people, no one will bother putting money into them and the system will collapse. Given that’s literally a multi-trillion dollar industry, I’d like to cope and believe that the finance ghouls in charge are bright enough to not kill their golden goose by going all-in on $420KEK or whatever.
well the housing market is worth what, 100 trillion?
i’m afraid you’ve just lathed it
The difference is that subprime mortgages were being repackaged as safe investments and then used as fodder in retirement accounts. I severely doubt anyone’s going to try something similar with crypto (again, coping that Wall Street is at least smart enough not to shit in their own food here, this comment will age poorly, etc etc)
That’s the Greenspan Tragedy isn’t it? Rationally and taken as a whole the finance, banking and pensions system wouldn’t even think of doing this. But individually, Golden Parachutes can take managers very far indeed.
That said, there’s no real reason to doom over this sort of ultimate financial fuckery. It’s like trying to doomsday prep for thermonuclear war. Ya ain’t surviving that.
I have no doubt it will be tried. It may exist already, there are publicly tradable corporations that have large crypto holdings, basically copying MicroStrategy’s strategy, and turning themselves into de-facto crypto ETFs.
what do you mean? as soon as 401ks go into crypto there are gonna be some massive rug pulls and that will be the end of that? i dunno… crypto is sketchy as fuck
This relies on people actually going out and buying ruinous amounts of crypto in their 401ks, which I don’t see happening en masse. Most people just set and forget on a single target date fund, probably the Qualified Default Investment Alternative for their plan. Even if the Department of Labor were to do away with the current regulations on QDIA diversification and option type to get people into crypto by default, we’d also need to see plan administrators who even want to do that, and I don’t think we’re going to see that from the likes of Fidelity and Vanguard.
This is not about individuals gaining the ability to use their pre-tax 401k dollars to buy crypto, it’s specifically giving fund managers the permission they’ve actually already had for years, to expose their funds to high-volatility investment vehicles. Crypto, gold, silver, private equity investing into leveraged buyouts of companies to rip the copper out of the walls, etc.
Fidelity, Vanguard, et al. are exactly who asked for this and have already been doing this for years.
If they’ve already functionally had permission, what’s the meaningful change here?
I also find myself skeptical that the barrier to high volatility investments being promoted in 401ks is that they didn’t have the right stuff to push. There’s been nothing functionally stopping fund administrators from offering gold ETFs for the two decades they’ve been available, for instance, it’s just not terribly common.
Yes, this does in fact appear to be another useless retread EO, I think it’s another example of the administration trying to replicate existing legislation in order to signal their support for a concept or will it into happening.
most people probably aren’t really managing their 401ks, they just have part of their check put in and they don’t think about it… the fund managers in the other hand might be enticed by the higher managing fees to take a bit more risk
But can’t that be said of any publicly traded investment with more risk and/or higher expense ratio? What’s different here that’s going to make this uniquely worse?
I think because stocks and bonds have pretty well defined risk categories. You can choose to go risky or you can choose to go safe.
Crypto is extremely volatile though and there isn’t realy much in the way of less risky investing. Maybe it will be offered as high-risk only? Maybe it will be rolled into broader investment portfolios to hedge the risk? Maybe the whole damn country will just get rug-pulled? Who knows?
The fact that it’s even being considered tells me there’s something wrong going on here and it won’t be good for the people as a whole which in my experience is a pretty safe bet.
leveraged funds buying basket of shitcoins, which goes to 0?
I mean yeah that’s how to turn money into nothing, but how do we get to that point? 59% of Vanguard plan participants only hold a single target date fund according to page 6 of this 2025 report, and I really doubt much of the remaining 31% who use more plan offerings (making them less diversified, paradoxically) will end up investing a significant amount in crypto or crypto funds.
probably not directly, no, but it would be called like “etf of risky investment, 20% yoy perfomance”. if they get even 5% of usa market, it would be more than neough for crypto
“even 5% of USA market” is doing a lot of work there. All the sector funds in the vanguard plans (what seems like the closest thing to compare crypto to, particularly the precious metals one) amount to 1% usage by participants, and every sector besides real estate has <0.5% usage.