U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters could soon return to the helm of the House Financial Services Committee if Democrats perform as expected in the November elections, and she is requesting that the Department of Labor back off a proposal that would encourage managers of 401(k) retirement plans to offer alternative investments, including cryptocurrency.
In March, the Labor Department proposed a rule to implement what President Donald Trump had ordered: that people’s 401(k) accounts be open to investments in private equity, private credit, real estate, commodities and digital assets. Waters submitted a detailed, 11-page comment letter to the department this week requesting that the idea be withdrawn.
“It is incoherent for the Department to bless digital assets as suitable for retirement savings for ordinary Americans, while [Securities and Exchange Commission] is still building the investor protection regime intended to make the same assets safe for ordinary investors,” Waters argued in the letter. “The danger is not limited to the volatility of individual tokens, however severe. It reflects a wider deterioration across the digital asset ecosystem, where trading activity, developer engagement and user participation have collapsed.”
