AlternativesMarch 9, 2026

Indiana Mandates Access to Crypto Investments for Participants in Certain State Retirement Plans

The state is the first in the U.S. to require digital assets be an investment option in public defined contribution plans through a brokerage window.

Reported by Edward Rueda

Indiana lawmakers have mandated that certain state-run public defined contribution plans offer investments in cryptocurrency by 2027. Governor Mike Braun signed House Bill 1042 into law last week. The law set July 1, 2027 as the deadline for the state retirement to offer self-directed brokerage accounts with at least one cryptocurrency investment option.

The law applies to Hoosier START, the state’s public employees’ deferred compensation plan, which offers 457(b) and 401(a) plans; the state legislators’ defined contribution plan; and other retirement funds and accounts for “specified” public employees and teachers.

The state’s Legislative Services Agency, in a February report on the bill, stated that “The bill would increase workload for the [Indiana Public Retirement System] board and the deferred compensation committee for Hoosier Start. They would be required to adopt requirements and rules for the chosen investment program.”

The new law also prevents state agencies, other than the Indiana Department of Financial Institutions, from prohibiting or limiting the use of digital assets as payment, and prevents outlawing or restricting digital asset mining businesses.

Tom Perkins, investment counsel and director of the Indiana Public Retirement System, which runs the state’s pensions, testified before a state Senate Finance Committee hearing last month that his organization had worked with the state house on the bill, and he was “more or less happy” with it.

State Representative Kyle Pierce, a Republican, said in a statement when he introduced the bill in December that it would give “more investment choices while establishing guardrails.” His bill follows a general political push to emphasize the ability to invest in alternative assets, in line with President Donald Trump’s August executive order encouraging 401(k) plans’ investment in private assets.

Indiana’s law is “unusual” for giving investment requirements for the brokerage window, from the perspective of Matt Petersen, executive director of the National Association of Government Defined Contribution Administrators, who said that could also limit the law’s impact.

“About 1% of all money is in the [brokerage] window, so I don’t expect this one to have much of an effect,” Petersen says.

Anthony Randazzo, founder and CEO of the Equable Institute, a nonprofit that studies public pensions, also says that Indiana’s law is “curious” for focusing on mandating an asset class that was not explicitly outlawed, but he also expects other states could follow the Hoosier state’s lead with copycat bills.

“The nature of a law that mandates a niche asset class, not just that it can be considered, but that it has to be made available, is almost by its nature political, because it is stepping … into the fiduciary oversight process,” Randazzo says.

States are increasingly considering legislation that would expand the public uses of cryptocurrency. For example, Missouri lawmakers are reviewing a bill, H.B. 2080, authorizing the state to create “Bitcoin Strategic Reserve Fund” accept gifts, donations, and bequests of Bitcoin from Missouri residents or governmental entities, and potentially invest in cryptocurrency using state funds.