U.S: Fidelity urged to stop offering Bitcoin to retail investors

Senators urge institutional Fidelity, a retirement fund manager to stop allowing bitcoin investments.

Institutional Fidelity has been ramping up crypto products, including announcing a Bitcoin retirement savings plan. However, three U.S. senators are saying stop following the FTX bankruptcy.

Fidelity is one of the largest managers of 401(k) plans, with 32 million of these retirement plans, whose assets are invested in the financial markets, and in which employers in the United States participate.

Last spring, the company had announced that it would allow customers contributing to their pensions to build up part of their savings in bitcoins, a new gesture participating in the popularization of the crypto despite the warnings of the authorities. The Department of Labor had issued a warning against such investments in cryptocurrencies for retirement plans, calling on administrators to exercise “extreme caution.”

Such an initiative is no longer relevant, however, consider three U.S. senators, who intend to pressure Fidelity to give up. Their justification: the bankruptcy of FTX, a symbol of the disaster of “charismatic prodigies” like SBF.

In a new letter sent to Fidelity on Monday, November 21, the two politicians are joined by another senator, Richard Durbin. Their request remains unchanged: to abandon the exposure of individuals to Bitcoin.

‘Once again, we urge Fidelity Investments to reconsider its decision to allow 401(k) plan sponsors to expose Bitcoin plan participants,’ they urge.

For the three detractors of the Bitcoin product, the United States is also already facing a pension crisis. And this one “should not be aggravated by exposing retirement savings to unnecessary risks,” they stress.