Crypto Retirement Rule Reaches White House for Final Review

A long-awaited U.S. cryptocurrency regulation has reached the White House, moving a Labor Department framework that could open employer-sponsored pension plans to digital asset funds into its final review stage.

At the core of the change sit the plan managers who decide which funds employees can access through their workplace retirement plans. A draft published by the Department of Labor in March proposed granting these managers legal protection — provided they document the process they followed when selecting investment options for their plans.

The draft lays out six elements managers must evaluate before adding a fund to a plan menu:

• The investment's performance
• Its costs
• Its liquidity
• How the product is valued
• Which benchmarks it compares against
• How complex the product is

The framework targets a specific legal risk: lawsuits. Employers and plan fiduciaries have hesitated to add crypto-linked funds to retirement menus partly because of litigation exposure under federal fiduciary rules. Documented compliance with the six criteria would reduce that exposure for sponsors who want to offer funds allocating a portion of their portfolios to digital assets.

Where does the authority come from?

The rulemaking traces back to a presidential executive order signed by Donald Trump on August 7, 2025. That order designated actively managed funds investing in digital assets — alongside private equity and real estate — as alternative investment options eligible for consideration in retirement portfolios.

The Labor Department had already shifted its stance months earlier. In May 2025, it withdrew its 2022 guidance, which had advised plan fiduciaries to exercise "extreme caution" before offering cryptocurrency options to plan participants. That withdrawal removed the most explicit regulatory warning standing between crypto funds and retirement menus, but it did not by itself give managers legal cover — which is what the March draft is designed to supply.

What changes for Bitcoin and retirement savers?

The practical consequence for Bitcoin is distribution. If the final rule stands, employees could gain access to funds inside their employer-sponsored plans that allocate part of their portfolio to digital assets — exposure that previously required a separate brokerage account outside the plan.

Three open questions remain unresolved until the final text is published:

• Whether all six criteria from the March draft survive into the final rule
• Under what conditions crypto funds qualify for inclusion
• The effective date of the regulation

The White House review is the last major procedural step before publication. Once the final text drops, plan sponsors, asset managers and recordkeepers will have a concrete compliance checklist rather than the current draft language — and the first wave of crypto-allocated funds could move into retirement plan menus under federal safe-harbor protection.