Trump’s 401k Order May Flood Bitcoin and Ethereum with $122B—Here’s How

Wall Street's about to get a crypto wake-up call—and it's wearing a red tie.

The 401k Shakeup

A new executive order could auto-direct retirement funds into Bitcoin and Ethereum, bypassing traditional gatekeepers. Default allocations might channel up to $122 billion into crypto—whether boomers like it or not.

The Fine Print

Expect resistance from fund managers who'd rather keep collecting 2% fees on your dying bond portfolio. The move could accelerate institutional adoption... or become a political football faster than a Solana outage.

The Bottom Line

Pension funds mooning? Stranger things have happened—like the SEC approving a memecoin ETF. Either way, Wall Street's 'not your keys' mantra just got a federal endorsement.

How much could 401(k)s bring to crypto?

The glide path math frames realistic ranges for 2026. Using ICI’s DC base, a 0.10% default across 10% of assets points to about $1.22 billion of crypto demand. A 0.50% default across 25% of assets points to about $15.3 billion, while a 1.00% default across half the market would reach about $61 billion.

Modeled flows using $12.2T US defined-contribution base; values are theoretical and illustrative.

If sponsors weight sleeves toward Bitcoin at launch, ethereum still absorbs a measurable share once ETH ETFs are included on platforms, though the split depends on investment policy statements and recordkeeper support. These figures are mechanical translations of defaults and adoption into dollars, not forecasts of market impact.

Risk controls and fees remain Core to the debate. Per The Washington Post, proponents view more menu choice as portfolio diversification, while critics warn that valuation, liquidity and costs require careful design for a retirement context. Kiplinger’s overview adds that sponsors may route exposure through managed accounts or TDFs rather than stand-alone options, a choice that centralizes due diligence and participant communication.

For crypto markets, the mechanism matters. If plans fund sleeves through spot ETFs, new contributions translate to primary creations when shares exceed inventory, which feeds through to underlying coin demand via authorized participants.

That transmission channel ties adoption inside DC plans to the ETF primary market rather than secondary swings, which is why the default percentage embedded in TDFs and CITs will matter more than menu headlines.

The next milestones sit with agency guidance, product filings, and recordkeeper integrations, then plan committee updates to investment policy statements. The flows, if implemented, would arrive on a schedule, and the order moves the 401(k) discussion from permissions to allocation math.