or I suppose you probably bought bit coins when they first came out..

Or bonds, or stocks, or bitcoin, or crude oil.... you name it.Cheers...

Cash out, take the early withdrawal fee, tax hit, etc etc and go buy more Bitcoin(highly unlikely to choose this option, but I'm sure plenty of people have done this ha ha).

Where we start to see the separation of people interested in real estate and flashier, hip investments like Bitcoin or IPO's or Shark Tank opportunities is timing.

Such plans are purely a way to diversify your tax-sheltered retirement savings into non-conventional assets such as real estate, private mortgages, Bitcoin, etc. 

I do not think it is overhyped (like blockchain was/is) but people need to realize that this technology will not happen overnight.

Bitcoin is down 52% and that's strong relative performance to other cryptocurrencies.Real estate is the last asset class standing in terms of holding it's value relative to inflation, and I think that a lot of folks are rightfully worried and/or skeptical that prices will hold in the real estate market in coming months with further rate hikes from the Fed expected.The only way that an investor could have "won" in this environment (other than real estate... so far) would have been to buy commodities and accurate predict the rise in prices for things like oil, raw materials, and food. 

As noted above, note investing was a soup de jour last year until bitcoin came around.

@Sam ShuehIn the self-directed retirement space, you can be your own "custodian" and invest in assets that you choose - real estate, cryptocurrency (Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc.), private loans - because you control the money.When others hold your assets, you should perform extra due diligence.

I still can't say for certain where crypto currencies for investments like Bitcoin and Ether are going in the future, but I can say that lending and savings platforms based on block-chain technology are really going to give the traditional banks a run for their money.