“Currently, cryptocurrency markets have no overarching or centralized regulatory framework, leaving investments in the digital assets space vulnerable to fraud manipulation and abuse,” said Rep. Maxine Waters of California, the Democratic chairwoman of the financial services panel.

Waters also raised concerns over the impact of cryptocurrencies on the environment, saying that “the computing power needed to mine some of the coins…can rival the energy needs of entire countries like Sweden or Argentina.”

Republicans focused on the idea that the distributed-ledger technology that enables the functioning of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin
BTCUSD,
-0.52%
and ether
ETHUSD,
+2.05%
could usher in the age of so-called Web 3.0, or an internet where networks will operate through decentralized protocols, rather than through centralized institutions like Facebook
FB,
+2.80%
or Google
GOOG,
+0.10%.

Brian Brooks, former acting comptroller of the currency and CEO of crypto company Bitfury, described the early version of the internet as “a curated walled garden” featuring “a set of content that was not interactive.” That was followed by ‘Web 2.0’ defined by social networks that relied on and enabled users to create their own content.

“What makes Web 3.0 different is the ability to own the actual network, and that’s what crypto assets themselves represent,” he said.

Republicans also argued that most cryptocurrency companies are already heavily regulated by a patchwork of state and federal agencies, a point that  Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of crypto exchange FTX and Coinbase Global
COIN,
-0.56%
CFO Alesia Hass made in their opening remarks.

“I want to be clear that this technology is already regulated,” said Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, the ranking Republican on the committee. Though “the regulations may be clunky and they may not be up to date,” he added, he warned his colleagues against further regulating the industry “out of the fear of the unknown.”

The Securities and Exchange Commission is currently considered enforcement actions against crypto exchanges that do not register with the agency as a securities exchange, according to recent comments by Chairman Gary Gensler.

Coinbase’s Hass pushed back on these threats, telling lawmakers that her company engages in a “robust assessment” of each of the assets it sells on its platform, to make sure that none meet the definition of a security under federal law. If an exchange offers securities, it must register with the SEC.

Witnesses also criticized a recent report on stablecoins issued by the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets, which recommended that Congress pass legislation requiring that stablecoins be issued by a federal regulated bank.

“The report raises legitimate risks, but its recommended solutions go too far,” said Danelle Dixon, CEO of Steller Development Foundation, which maintains the distributed network that issues the cryptocurrency lumens
XLMUSD,
+3.76%.
“Instead, we advocate for a regulatory approach that focuses more on stablecoin reserves by requiring stable coin arrangements be fully reserved by appropriate assets.”

Stablecoins are a type of digital asset that attempts to maintain a one-to-one peg with the U.S. dollar
DXY,
-0.48%,
and are used by crypto traders to store unused funds. Advocates for the technology say it will become a major means of payment for goods and services outside the crypto world, because it’s a cheaper and more efficient means of payment than traditional financial services companies offer.

Honeywell’s stock
HON,
-1.56%
fell 1.6% in midday trading. It had bounced 2.7% over the previous four sessions, since closing on Dec. 1 at a 10-month low of $199.42.

The stock’s price decline of $3.29 shaved about 22 points off the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s
DJIA,
-0.23%
price, while the Dow declined 84 points, or 0.2%.

BofA’s Obin said “there is a lot to like” about Honeywell, as recent investments have shifted the company business toward higher growth and margins, but he believes the company is likely to face revenue and margin pressures into the first half of 2022.

Honeywell Chief Financial Officer Gregory Lewis said at the company’s “Leadership Webcast Series” last month that fourth-quarter revenue was trending to the low-to-middle end of expectations given the “severity of the constraints” in the economy from parts shortages and logistics and labor challenges, according to a FactSet transcript.

And while the company was doing what it could to alleviate the challenges, including raising prices and compensation, Lewis said it was “going to be a real fight.”

“It’s going to be with us for a while,” Lewis said. “It’s really hard to say whether we’re seeing the peak right now, but I would say to just kind of reiterate, I think we’re going to see some of these challenges going into the first half of next year.”

He highlighted, however, that “demand is not the issue,” it’s meeting that demand.

BofA’s Obin said given the near-term headwinds, he believes the scope for upward earnings revisions and valuation multiple expansion is limited.

“We believe [Honeywell] is a high-performing multi-industrial, with the sum worth more than the parts,” Obin wrote in a research note to clients. “However, our sum-of-the-parts analysis does not support further multiple expansion in the near term.”

The stock has slumped 9.2% over the past three months, while the SPDR Industrial Select Sector exchange-traded fund
XLI,
+0.03%
has tacked on 2.1% and the Dow has gained 1.7%.

Here is how Grayscale was listed on FactSet on Monday and for much of the early part of this week, at least.

Here is how it appeared in a watch list on FactSet’s database.

However, the Grayscale fund, the largest bitcoin investment vehicle on the planet, which boasts a roughly $27 billion market value as of Tuesday’s close, isn’t an ETF—far from it. ETFs can be bought and sold like stocks and offer transparent pricing.

A FactSet spokeswoman says that the error with naming GBTC, referring to the bitcoin trust’s ticker symbol, has since been corrected. It isn’t clear how the snafu happened.

A representative for Grayscale declined to comment specifically on the naming error but said that while the company “has filed to convert GBTC into a Bitcoin Spot ETF, the application is under review until July 2022.”

Grayscale, a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, is a pioneer in digital-asset management and its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, a closed-end fund, has been publicly listed since 2013. At one point, it was one of the few ways for traditional investors to credibly gain exposure to the world’s No.1 digital asset: bitcoin.

Bitcoin, a decentralized digital currency, created by a person or persons known as Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009 and its crypto brethren, such as Ether
ETHUSD,
+2.76%
on the Ethereum blockchain, are starting to gain traction as a bona fide asset class, albeit a tremendously volatile one, in some circles on Wall Street.

Grayscale officially submitted an application on Oct. 19 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to convert its fund into an ETF. The submission came at the same time the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF
BITO,
-0.12%
launched its bitcoin futures linked offering, becoming the first bitcoin-pegged ETF to make its debut in U.S. markets. Since that time, two other bitcoin related funds have emerged: Valkyrie Bitcoin Strategy ETF
BTF,

and VanEck Bitcoin Strategy ETF
XBTF,
-0.22%.

The reasons for Grayscale’s ETF ambitions are clear. It wants to maintain its dominance as an asset manager against rivals. Converting into an ETF, if it can pass muster with the SEC, would allow it to achieve that goal and maintain, and even grow, its assets under management.

The regulatory hurdles, however, seem somewhat high, at least in the near term.

SEC Chairman Gary Gensler has indicated an unwillingness to approve an ETF with direct ownership of bitcoin, which is Grayscale’s aim, and has so far preferred backing futures-linked bitcoin products because he says they offer better consumer guardrails.

Read: A ‘spot’ bitcoin ETF ‘ain’t so great’, says ProShares strategist ahead of provider’s futures-linked fund

There is a host of criticisms against a bitcoin futures ETF, including the costs of rolling the fund into new monthly futures contracts that underpin the fund, as well as issues tied to paying more because futures contracts for the crypto can be valued more richly for deliver in future months than for current prices for physical bitcoin.

Still, Grayscale isn’t backing down from its aspirations. It is aiming to create a bitcoin ETF similar to the SPDR Gold Shares
GLD,
-0.10%,
which is settled in physical gold rather than futures contracts to more accurately track the price of the commodity.

Grayscale recently issued a letter late last month challenging the SEC’s recent rejection of a prospective VanEck spot bitcoin ETF, arguing that the regulator has “no basis for the position that investing in the derivatives market for an asset is acceptable for investors while investing in the asset itself is not.”

In any case, the mislabeling of Grayscale’s premiere bitcoin fund on FactSet’s platform was an odd occurrence and raised some eyebrows among market participants.

“I think it is an interesting story given how widely followed and held GBTC is,” Todd Rosenbluth, head of mutual funds and ETF research at CFRA, told MarketWatch.

He speculated that FactSet might have been preparing for the eventuality of a Grayscale Bitcoin ETF in its system.

“I’m not sure what happened but I could see FactSet setting this up with an effective date and then not removing it when the timing was too early,” he said.

That said, he estimates that GBTC converting to an ETF would be in 2022 “at the earliest” but the SEC may still be uneasy about spot bitcoin ETFs because it’s hard to protect against market manipulation and fraud when directly owning bitcoin.

But at least, Grayscale was an ETF for a day, at least on one platform.

Grayscale’s fund, which has been trading at a discount to bitcoin spot prices, as fund competition was seen increasing, is up 26% so far in 2021, underperforming bitcoin, which is up 74%. By comparison, the S&P 500
SPX,
-0.01%
was up nearly 25% in the year to date, the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
-0.20%
was trading up over 16% and the Nasdaq Composite Index
COMP,
+0.27%
was showing a year-to-date return of 22%.

Our house has about $500,000 worth of equity and our condo is paid off and worth $450,000. We own both cars and our mortgage is our only outstanding loan. We have a balance of $210,000 and expect to pay this off before we are 65. 

I continually worry about when I can retire and running out of money during retirement. When we get together with friends and family, they always ask me when I am going to retire, and ask “you are not retired yet?”

I currently have a salary of about $200,000 and my wife works part time for some spending money. I don’t mind working currently, but at some point I would like to quit corporate life. I think we can live well on about $10,000 per month. 

I don’t feel like I can retire at this point and figure I have another 6 or 7 years before I can. How should I respond to friends and family thinking I should have retired by now?  

Thanks for listening,

Nervous Bill 

See: I’m 53, my wife is 54. Our $1.4 million retirement nest egg is 100% in equities and crypto. What should I do now for retirement?

Dear Nervous Bill, 

First of all, you definitely don’t deserve a B-. You have worked hard your whole life, you and your family are living comfortably and you’ve saved more than $1.3 million. That’s amazing. 

As for your friends and family asking questions, we’ll get to that later on. I’d like to start with some ways you can improve your future retirement security. 

You mention needing $10,000 or so per month. This is likely feasible, but you should look at how you plan to make up that amount every month, which sources you will derive this $10,000 from and if it takes into account all of the expenses you’ll need. Think about absolutely any expense you may have in retirement — not just housing, utilities, groceries and some recreational costs, but healthcare as well. Healthcare is one of the biggest bills Americans have in retirement — a couple retiring at age 65 can expect to spend $300,000 in retirement on healthcare alone, and that does not incorporate long-term care, which is also pretty expensive (think nursing home, renovating the home for aging in place, a health aide and so on). If you were to retire before 65, you’d need to account for health insurance before you become eligible for Medicare.

On top of all of the necessities, this is also a time for you to enjoy yourself, which may mean traveling, dining out or memberships to local sports or art institutions. Take into account inflation of prices for all of these things. 

“A major concern is variable expenses — the cost of a vehicle, cost of travel, the cost of clothing, electronics, food has all gone up massively,” said Dan Sudit, a partner of Crewe Advisors. You aren’t just thinking of the prices of today or five years from now, but also 10 and 20 years down the line, when you’ll still be in retirement. 

I will note that a financial planner can help you figure out what amount of money per month makes sense, as well as calculate inflation and investment returns to show you how your portfolio may be able to sustain your spending in retirement. 

As for your income in retirement, you’ll also have Social Security, as you know. But think long and hard before you start claiming. Taking benefits beginning at Full Retirement Age (also known as FRA) will give you 100% of the benefits you owe, whereas any time before will result in a permanent reduction of your full benefits. If you were to delay claiming from FRA up until age 70, you’d even get more money in your monthly checks. Make a list of all of the sources of income for retirement and start strategizing how you will take your monthly amount, with taxes and investment growth in mind. 

“Creating a distribution plan is very important when it comes to meeting and exceeding your retirement goals,” said Craig Ferrantino, founder and principal of Craig James Financial. 

While you’re still working, maximize your savings as best as you can, Ferrantino said. Reach the maximum contribution limit for a 401(k), which for Americans 50 and older will be $27,000. Do the same for an IRA, which is $7,000 for people 50 and older in 2022. 

“One misconception we see is that people believe they cannot contribute if they are maximizing their contributions to their 401(k), that is simply not true — you may not get the tax deduction but can most certainly still save for your retirement,” Ferrantino said.  

Your wife can also contribute to an IRA. Normally, an individual can only contribute what he has earned (so for example, if a 53-year-old only makes $3,000 this year, he can only contribute up to $3,000 in his IRA even if the contribution limit for a 53-year-old worker is $7,000). Because you earn more than that limit, however, she can contribute up to $7,000 for her own account under spousal IRA rules. 

Check out MarketWatch’s column “Retirement Hacks” for actionable pieces of advice for your own retirement savings journey 

It’s great you plan to have your mortgage paid off by age 65, but try balancing paying that debt off with saving for retirement. Yes, having the mortgage paid off is one less task to stress about, but you should be focused on maximizing your retirement savings during the last few years of your working years. If your mortgage is at a modest rate, and you have a few payments left into your retirement years, it’s a completely acceptable form of debt to take into retirement with you.

“So long as people have the economic wherewithal, there shouldn’t always be the compulsion to pay off a mortgage so long as it is embedded in your expenses,” Sudit said. It’s a fixed payment every month, so it won’t fluctuate. You wouldn’t want to bring “bad debt” into retirement with you, like credit card debt. 

Now for what to say to your family and friends. I understand this can be emotionally and mentally draining, but to be honest, it’s also none of their business whether you decide to keep working or not. If you’re happy at work, or you’re working because you want to keep saving money while you’re able, then all the power to you. 

“If you have expressed to family and friends you wish you were retired, it is still really none of their business but you can say ‘I will retire when the timing is right for my family and I and our future,’” Ferrantino said.  

And as for that grade you gave yourself… Sudit said you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself. He’d give you an A. 

Readers: Do you have suggestions for D? Add them in the comments below.

Have a question about your own retirement savings? Email us at HelpMeRetire@marketwatch.com