In brief
- Rep. Troy Downing is introducing a bill to give President Trump’s crypto retirement executive order the force of federal law.
- The order, signed in August, encouraged 401(k) providers to offer exposure to crypto and other alternative assets.
- The $25 trillion U.S. retirement savings industry could inject huge amounts of capital into crypto, but also expose retirees to greater risk.
A Republican congressman is pushing to legally codify an executive order recently signed by President Trump regarding retirement plans and alternative assets, in a move that could further push 401(k) providers to open the door to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
Rep. Troy Downing (R-MT), a freshman congressman who has embraced crypto as a favorite issue this year, will introduce a bill Tuesday that would codify President Trump’s August executive order on crypto and 401(k)s into law, a representative of the lawmaker confirmed to Decrypt.
The one-page bill, dubbed the Retirement Investment Choice Act, would simply grant the president’s order “the force and effect of law,” according to a copy of the legislation seen by Decrypt. News of the bill’s introduction was first reported by Politico.
Trump’s executive order insists that Americans preparing for retirement should have access to alternative assets, including crypto-exposed investment vehicles, in situations where a 401(k) provider “determines that such access provides an appropriate opportunity” to enhance returns on their retirement savings.
Downing’s bill would, if passed, make that demand not just an executive branch policy, but a matter of federal law.
“Alternative investments hold the transformative potential to supercharge the financial security of countless Americans saving for retirement,” the congressman said Tuesday in a statement shared with Decrypt. “I applaud President Trump for his leadership to democratize finance and am proud to be leading the effort in Congress to codify his EO and enshrine this move for generations to come.”
Should the $25 trillion American retirement savings industry open its doors to crypto products, analysts estimate the move could inject billions upon billions of dollars into the digital asset economy.
Currently, Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs are the only directly crypto-exposed assets trading on Wall Street. But that state of play is poised to soon change, with numerous altcoin and meme coin exchange-traded products, including those exposed to Solana and Dogecoin, expected to soon gain SEC approval.
What’s more, an increasing number of publicly traded companies have begun pegging their fortunes to the prices of various cryptocurrencies by investing in massive digital asset treasuries.
Such crypto-affiliated stocks have surged in recent months—but many have also crashed spectacularly.
Despite Republicans’ current power trifecta in Washington, there is little guarantee that Downing’s bill will become law. A similar effort to codify an executive order signed by President Trump to establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve has languished in the House since March.
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