Bad news, crypto bros… Elizabeth Warren has entered the chat, and she’s not here to pump your bags…

Fresh off a call with Donald Trump (after bashing him on live TV for not making grocery prices more affordable), Lizzy apparently found something new to be mad about. Because if there’s one thing Elizabeth Warren hates more than expensive eggs, it’s financial fun.

With the energy of an HOA president discovering an unapproved mailbox, Warren fired off a letter to Paul Atkins, demanding answers about the SEC’s plan to let crypto slither its way into Americans’ 401(k)s.

Her concern, in short: your retirement account is not supposed to feel like a weekend in Vegas.

Read in Warren’s voice: “For most Americans, their 401(k) represents a lifeline to retirement security rather than a playground for financial risk,” Warren wrote. In other words: please stop letting people YOLO their retirement into Dogecoin.

(Source: CNBC)

Obviously, this whole mess traces back to Donald Trump, who signed an executive order last August clearing the runway for alternative assets (including crypto and private equity) to be offered more regularly inside traditional retirement plans. Translation: Fartcoin might soon be sitting right next to all your Grandpa’s favorite Vanguard mutual funds and ETFs. And Warren (not the Buffett one), unsurprisingly, is not happy, Bob.

She warned that crypto’s wild volatility, opaque pricing, and cozy conflicts of interest could create “fertile ground for workers and families to lose big.” Which, given crypto’s track record, is a legit argument.

To make her case, Warren pointed to a 2024 Government Accountability Office study that found crypto assets have “uniquely high volatility” and (this part’s important) no standard way to project future returns. That’s not great when you’re planning to retire at 67 and not “whenever Bitcoin feels like cooperating.”

She also couldn’t resist highlighting Trump’s crypto transformation: from calling Bitcoin “a scam” in 2021 to allegedly racking up more than $1.2 billion in crypto-related gains after his 2024 reelection, according to the Center for American Progress. Though, in his defense, he’s not the only one who switched up once he saw the $ signs.

Of course, the letter drops while Congress is debating crypto market structure legislation… legislation that may or may not include a “tokenization loophole” large enough to yeet entire financial products straight around the SEC.

Warren’s fear is that the moment something touches a blockchain, it suddenly becomes invisible to regulators… even if it’s living rent-free inside your grandpa’s 401(k).

(Source: American Banker)

Several major labor unions agree, including the American Federation of Teachers and the AFL-CIO, who are also waving red flags about letting experimental financial plumbing anywhere near workers’ nest eggs.

Then Warren proceeded to grill the SEC with the following thought provoking questions:

Are crypto valuations in public disclosures actually fair market value, given the volatility?

Has the SEC studied manipulative or deceptive practices in crypto markets?

And lastly, what investor education exists for people about to buy crypto through retirement plans?

The SEC, through a spokesperson, declined to comment (which pretty much tells us everything we need to know).

Despite Warren’s warnings, Atkins is holding the line. The crypto train is moving, the brakes are nowhere to be found, and no one in Washington appears interested in slowing it down. He’s framed Trump’s order as a gauntlet meant to make the U.S. the “crypto capital of the world,” backed by smoother rules and regulatory clarity for builders (what could possibly go wrong). 

Sure, it’s not supposed to be the Wild West (fraud is still fraud) but the sheriff isn’t exactly making his rounds anymore. Which naturally raises the question: when was the last time a bad actor in crypto actually faced real consequences? (Yeah… exactly.) This kind of regulatory shrug just opens the door for the next SBF-style meltdown… and honestly, maybe we’re due.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News holds positions in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Vanguard as mentioned in the article.