Firm spices up Bitcoin IRA option with in-app game

If adding Bitcoin to individual retirement accounts wasn’t enough to get some people interested in saving for retirement, one company is adding a game to the mix.

On Thursday, Sioux Falls, South Dakota-based plan provider Choice announced that it is adding a Price-Is-Right-style game to its app. The game, Blinko, lets account holders drop a token through a peg grid, once a day, in hopes of winning Bitcoin that would be added to their retirement savings.

Choice, which is part of Kingdom Trust Co., is giving away 1 billion Satoshis as part of its promotion, it stated in the announcement. A Satoshi is the smallest Bitcoin unit, or a one hundred-millionth of the digital currency.

Choice launched in 2020 and bills itself as “the first retirement provider to offer a single account for all client retirement assets, physical or digital, legacy or traditional.” The provider includes more than 125,000 accounts in its business, with custody of over more than $18 billion in assets, it said.

Other players have entered this area, including ForUsAll, which last year debuted a brokerage-style investment option, Alt 401(k), that lets clients allocate as much as 5% of their invested assets to various cryptocurrencies through Coinbase Institutional.

The financial services industry has occasionally taken stabs at gamification in hopes of getting people more engaged with their accounts or luring new clients. But how effective those strategies have been is questionable at best.

Crypto and digital assets, however, might be something 401(k) participants are interested in.

About 60% of people said they would like to see digital asset options added to their plans, according to a recent survey of 821 people by Capitalize. Nearly as many said they recognized cryptocurrencies are volatile, and 45% said they are risky.

The fluctuations this month in Bitcoin have been a strong reminder of that.

More than half of people also said that digital assets are strong long-term investments, with more enthusiasm among younger generations. Just over 50% of baby boomers said that, compared with 59% of Gen Xers, 60% of millennials and 78% of Gen Z respondents, according to Capitalize.

However, only about 5% of people said they hold Bitcoin through an IRA, although another 50% said they would consider it.

There's also some interest among financial advisers. Among more than 200 advisers Capitalize surveyed, more than 52% said they feel cryptocurrency can be a strong short-term investment, and about 47% said it is good as a long-term option. About 60% said that crypto is overhyped, but more than half also indicated that it has potential within retirement accounts.

A report last year by Morningstar reached a different conclusion. Although Gen Z investors surveyed were five times as likely as baby boomers to say they wanted crypto in their retirement accounts, they still ranked it as the least important aspect among 16 different features.