Cynthia Lummis, U.S. Senator, and Bitcoin proponent would like to see American residents turn to Bitcoin as part of a very diversified strategy for their retirement plans. The Senator wants to see crypto-assets become a norm inclusion in the diversified asset allocations in US citizens’ retirement strategies.
On June 29, while speaking during the CNBC Financial Advisor Summit, Senator Lummis said that she would like to see Bitcoin and other crypto-assets become a normal segment of diversified asset allocations used for retirement funds to protect them from inflation. She added:
“I’d also like to see individuals be able to use Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies of their preference that are safe, that have met the hurdles of anti-money laundering and Bank Secrecy Act.”
Lummis insisted on the importance of maintaining a ‘diverse asset allocation’ warning about the inflation risks arising from excessive government spending and money printing:
“The Congress spends trillions and trillions of dollars, and is flooding our economy and the world economy with U.S. dollars, there’s no way that we cannot debase the value of the U.S. dollar.”
While the US citizens have managed to include crypto assets in their retirement portfolios since the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) first issued guidance on the sector in 2014, the practice of hodling digital assets in one’s retirement plan has now remained a niche practice.
Nonetheless, despite the first crypto-friendly retirement plans starting to emerge last year, most of the analysts are skeptical of the new trend. On June 22, Aaron Pottichen, senior vice president at Alliant Retirement Consulting, told CNBC:
“plan sponsors, in general, are still very unlikely to want to adopt any type of cryptocurrency into their investment line-up.”
In the same interview, Lummis announced that she currently owns up to 5 bitcoins, having acquired her first BTC in 2013 for about $330. Despite her BTC bullishness, she insisted that portfolio diversification is important. She does not advise any retired individual to go all-in on Bitcoin:
“I don’t want everybody putting all their money in Bitcoin just like I don’t want everybody putting it in dollars and putting it under a mattress.”
