The U.S. Department of Labor has sent the final version of its rule on how 401(k) plan fiduciaries select alternative investments, a category that includes some crypto funds, to the White House for review.
The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), a unit of the White House Office of Management and Budget, logged the submission on Nov. 5, according to its public review record. The record lists the rule, identified as 1210-AC38, at the final rule stage and marks it economically significant. As of Monday, the review was listed as pending, and the final text had not been made public.
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What the Proposal Would Do
The department proposed the rule in the Federal Register on March 31, carrying out President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14330, which he signed on Aug. 7, 2025. Under the proposal, a fiduciary who weighs six factors (performance, fees, liquidity, valuation, benchmarking and complexity) when picking an investment option would have a judgment that is “presumed to be reasonable and is entitled to significant deference.”
The proposal does not single out crypto. It repeats the executive order’s list of alternative assets, which covers “holdings in actively managed investment vehicles that are investing in digital assets.” In May 2025, the department withdrew 2022 guidance that had told fiduciaries to use “extreme care” before adding crypto to plan menus.
The rule’s entry in the federal regulatory agenda says the effort aims to “relieve the regulatory burdens and litigation risk” that the department says limit returns and diversification in workers’ retirement accounts.
Pushback in Congress
Public comments closed June 1. That day, Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Bobby Scott wrote to Acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling. In the letter, they urged the department to “rescind the proposal and retain its long-held legal and regulatory investor protections.” The lawmakers said the rule would expose retirement accounts to “exceptionally volatile assets, like digital currency.”
The final rule reached OIRA 157 days after the comment period ended, by Unchained’s count of the two dates.
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