Invest in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency with Bitcoin IRA

Jeff Weisbein -

So you want to invest in Bitcoin? There’s now a service that I just found called Bitcoin IRA that makes it extremely easy and pain-free to invest in Bitcoin as well as other cryptocurrencies including Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, Ripple, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash.

The difference between Bitcoin IRA and investing in Bitcoin yourself is that if you use Bitcoin IRA, you are creating an official retirement investment vehicle. Now because of this, as you would imagine, starting a retirement account that hold Bitcoins and/or other cryptocurrency will require significantly more steps and procedures to set up than with cash purchases. Which is why Bitcoin IRA offers a full-service (and licensed) solution that facilitates the process for account set up, rollover of funds from an existing IRA, execution of a live trade, and moving funds to a secure digital wallet for all account types.

In terms of what kinds of retirement accounts that can be rolled over into a Bitcoin IRA–the answer is pretty much any. You can rollover funds from an existing IRA, Roth IRA, SEP IRA, SIMPLE IRA, 403b, or 401k into a self-directed Bitcoin IRA account. At the end of the day what you will have is an IRA account that can hold various cryptocurrencies and perhaps most importantly, it’s a tax deferred account. Because it’s an official retirement account, the tax rules are the same as any other IRA you may have open, so your Bitcoin IRA account will receive tax deferred status, allowing it to appreciate in value without immediate tax liability. After you reach retirement age of 59 ½ and begin withdrawing funds, you will pay taxes at that time. Additionally, as you would expect, if you wanted to withdraw funds prior to turning 59 ½ you would be charged a penalty. That being said, you can absolutely sell your funds so long as it is used to reinvest in an IRA or is held in your BitGo wallet in a liquid state.

Once you are ready to make the investment with Bitcoin IRA, there’s a couple things you need to know. The first is that there is a $20,000 minimum investment. The second is that there is an initial one-time service fee that varies depending on investment amount (the fee, according to Bitcoin IRA, is intended to cover the assistance with the setup and rolling over your retirement funds). And lastly, there is a minimal custodian and security fee.

This is the first service of this kind that I’ve run across which is why I thought it was worth sharing. It’s an easy way to invest in Bitcoin long-term. That being said, there are a few other things I should note:

  • Currently there is no way to transfer Bitcoins or any other cryptocurrency that you already own into your Bitcoin IRA account.
  • You cannot use an exchange such as Coinbase to buy Bitcoin for your Bitcoin IRA. Everything must go through Bitcoin IRA.

Obviously this is a huge deal for most people, we’re talking about retirement savings, so definitely spend time and think through how much you would be willing to invest (and potentially lose) before making any investments. Also, I’d definitely give the ebook created by Bitcoin IRA a read before doing anything. I believe in cryptocurrencies and think there’s a definite future there, but I can’t stress this enough: do your own homework.