Almost 50% of Gen Z and Millennials want crypto in retirement funds: Survey
Nearly half of Gen Z and Millennials want to see crypto become part of their 401(k) retirement plans, according to an October survey by US asset manager Charles Schwab.
By asking participants what they would like to see added to their 401(k) retirement products, the firm found that 46% of Gen Z and 45% of Millennials said they “wish” they could invest in cryptocurrencies as part of their retirement planning.
That shouldn’t come as a surprise, as the survey also found that 43% of Gen Z and 47% of Millennials are already investing in cryptocurrencies outside of their 401(k), which could indicate the group’s affinity for the asset class.
The asset manager surveyed 1,100 401(k) plan participants ages 21 to 70 to complete the 10-minute survey conducted between April 4 and April 19, 2022.
Participants in the survey had to have worked for a company with 25 or more employees and be current contributors to the company’s 401(k) plans.
Millennials typically refer to those born in the early 1980s to the mid-1990s, with Gen Z typically born between the mid-to-late 1990s to the early 2010s.
The results stand in stark contrast to those surveyed Gen X and Boomers – those born anywhere between the mid-1940s to the late 1970s – with only 31% and 11% looking to invest in cryptocurrencies through their 401(k ), and even less is. current investors in the asset class.
Across the board, inflation was seen as the leading obstacle to retirement.
A similar study by Investopedia in April found that only 28% of US-based Millennials and 17% of Gen Zs surveyed expected to use cryptocurrency to support themselves in retirement.
Related: Roth IRA: The Ideal Long-Term Cryptocurrency Investment?
The asset manager does not currently offer cryptocurrency investments as part of its 401(k) retirement plans, although crypto-based retirement funds have been in the works since February 2019.
In April, Fidelity Investment reportedly put together plans to open up Bitcoin investments to ts 401(k) retirement savings account holders, with savers allowed to allocate as much as 20% of Bitcoin (BTC) to their savings portfolio.
In Australia, Rest Super became the first superannuation fund to offer cryptocurrency allocations as part of a diversified portfolio to its 1.9 million members in November 2021.
While most digital asset pension funds are offered in the form of Bitcoin or Ether (ETH), a county in Northern Virginia speculated on depositing a portion of its retirees’ pension funds into a decentralized finance (DeFi) yield farming account in May. 2022 – which was later approved in August 2022.
But things can go wrong. A Quebec pension fund lost almost all of its $154.7 million invested heavily in now-bankrupt cryptocurrency lending platform Celsius.
Controversies like this have left U.S. senators divided on the seriousness of the risks associated with crypto-exposed 401(k) pension plans.
Among them are Democratic senators Elizabeth Warren, Dick Durbin and Tina Smith, who have previously argued that exposing America’s “hard-earned” pension funds to “cryptocurrency casinos” is a “bridge too far.”
