In the 30 plus years of investing, investing in cryptocurrency has been a wild ride. Mostly ups, but lots of downs. What makes sense as a small portion of investments that I’m willing to lose makes no sense as a 401(k) investment.

What we do in our private lives for investments in our business, what we allow as an investment in a 401(k) plan is different if we are a plan fiduciary or if we counsel them. The wild ride of Crypto, especially the negative volatility makes it clear that it’s a bad investment for most plan participants. When the crypto market plunged on a particular Sunday, I bought. Many 401(k) participants would have panicked and locked in their losses rather than wait the next day, only to see prices spike over 25% as a rebound.

Crypto is a highly speculative and unregulated investment, it doesn’t belong on a 401(k) fund lineup anytime soon.