Coinbase partners with 401(k) provider to offer crypto investments in retirement accounts

• Coinbase and 401(k) provider ForUsAll have teamed up to allow workers to invest directly in cryptos within their retirement accounts.
• Investors whose employers use ForUsAll's crypto plan will be allowed to invest up to 5% of their 401(k) contributions in bitcoin, ether, and others.
• ForUsAll has $1.7 billion in retirement-plan assets, a small player in the $22 trillion retirement-account market.

Some people saving for retirement will now be able add cryptocurrencies to their 401(k) portfolio.

ForUsAll, a 401(k) provider, is partnering with cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase to allow workers to invest up to 5% of their 401(k) contributions in bitcoin, ether, litecoin, and other coins, The Wall Street Journal first reported.

Workers that have plans from ForUsAll will be allowed to directly invest in crypto assets, while Coinbase Institutional will manage trading and custody of the coins. ForUsAll did not disclose how many of its employer clients have signed on to the crypto platform.

Most 401(k) plans and individual retirement accounts do not allow investors to directly invest in cryptocurrencies.

ForUsAll has 400 employer clients and only $1.7 billion in retirement-plan assets, making it a small player in the $22 trillion retirement-account market. However its embrace of crypto comes at a time of strong retail interest in digital assets.

An infographic on the ForUsAll homepage notes the high returns that crypto investing has garnered:

"If you purchased $5K of Bitcoin in a $100k portfolio on 3/16/2020 at $4575.36 and then sold it on 3/14/2021 at $61,598.92, you would have $67,315 in the Alt401(k) vs. 43,754.64 in a taxable account. This assumes you used Roth contributions in the Alt401(k) and a tax rate of 35%. This example does not reflect account or transaction fees," the San, Francisco-based company said.

Bitcoin traded around $37,500 Thursday morning.