ForUsAll Inc., a 401(k) provider, announced earlier this month that investors in their retirement plans will soon be able to invest up to 5% of their 401(k) contributions in Bitcoin, Litecoin, and other cryptocurrencies.
Crypto investing is rarely offered as an option for 401(k) plans or other investment retirement accounts. ForUsAll is looking to help its investors diversify their portfolios, with the company also offering environmentally responsible funds, real estate and of course, mutual funds.
Cryptocurrencies are digital currencies created and exchanged over an unregulated and decentralized computer network. Transactions are secured and verified through coding.
ForUsAll was founded in 2012 and has an estimated $1.7 billion in retirement plan assets. The company represents a small portion of the $22 trillion retirement account market. Executives at ForUsAll will not say how many of the firm’s 400 employer clients have signed up for the cryptocurrency platform, according to the Wall Street Journal, who first reported the news.
According to the 2021 Trends in Investing Survey, advisors are slowly beginning to embrace cryptocurrencies, which was first added to the survey in 2018. At that time, just 1.4% of advisers indicated they were currently using or recommending cryptocurrencies with clients. That percentage dropped to below 1% in the following two years but has since increased to 14% of advisers interviewed who are currently using or recommending cryptocurrencies in 2021.
The survey suggests that over the next twelve months, advisors will continue to increase their use or recommendation of cryptocurrencies. Nearly half of the advisors interviewed signaled that their clients had inquired about investing in cryptocurrencies in the last six-month period. That is a 32% increase from the previous year.
Bitcoin, which was launched in 2009, is the original and the most popular cryptocurrency. Its value depends on investors’ confidence in the currency due to the lack of a central authority governing the supply of it.
Bitcoin mining is the process of verifying transactions in exchange for new coins. Bitcoin mining involves complex calculations and vast amounts of computing power.
While BitCoin is the most well-known of the cryptocurrencies, there are over 7,800 cryptocurrencies in existence, with new tokens popping up all the time. Bitcoin has over a 60% share of the market, and the top five cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Tether and Litecoin) represent more than 80% of the crypto sector.
Because of these wild swings, investors should proceed with caution before piling their entire nest egg into something as volatile as cryptocurrencies.
Most cryptocurrencies are speculative investments and can quickly rise and fall in value. Bitcoin reached an all-time high in April but has since lost 40% of its value in the two months since; however, it has gained 436% in value over the last three years.
In 2013, Bitcoin began trading at $13 per coin. Four years later, the digital token surged to nearly $20,000 before crashing to $3,000 the following year. In April 2021 it rose to its all-time high of $64,000.
El Salvador became the first country to adopt BitCoin as a legal tender last week. El Salvador’s 39-year-old president Nayib Bukele got congress to green light his plan to make the country the first to use Bitcoin as legal tender.
Coinbase Teams up with a 401K Provider to Bring Cryptocurrencies to Retirement Plans
