How to Grow Your Crypto Tax Free

Four Crypto IRA Reviews

Updated 2/1/2022

Let’s be real, the Politicians and Governments of the world we live have one purpose, collect as much tax revenue as possible to keep themselves and their pet projects in power.

Their idea of a decentralized money system is foreign to them, because they and the Central Bankers (who really fund our government debt) can’t control it.

They don’t want you to keep your money, yet alone profit from gains made taking risk and making wise decisions in investing in the best projects and protocols and reaping the awards.

Instead, the governments are looking for ways to tax those risk gains and use that money to waste on their pet projects, all in the name of social justice and climate change.

But what if there was a better way?

There is, if you live in the United States — it’s called the Crypto Roth IRA and it will allow you to contribute a certain amount each and every year into great projects and allow them to grow tax free until you can take distributions at 59 1/2.

Now to a young person in their 20’s, 30’s and even 40’s — that seems like an eternity — but those years will go fast and when I tell you, you can invest that money into real estate and businesses, well things begin to look a little brighter.

Listen, to run with the wolf pack of the global elite, you need to understand their tactics and how to play the game.

Do you think the rich in the world don’t use the systems they setup to their own advantage, so they can squirrel away their money without paying their own self-impose tax regulations on the money they make?

Don’t be naïve, it’s time to learn how to run with the wolves.

Crypto Regulations are Coming in 2022 — Get Ready Now

To take advantage of the soon coming mass adoption and explosion of crypto assets, you need to begin preparing now, before more regulations make it harder to take advantage of the massive gains we’re about to experience.

Thankfully, we have some very smart, forward thinking visionaries in our midst who have already prepared for this.

Introducing the Crypto Roth IRA.

Crypto Roth IRAs are ideal for anyone wanting to grow their crypto holdings tax free into retirement and they are a perfect vehicle for today’s millennials.

Of course, diversification is the key to a well rounded plan, especially for those wanting to live entirely off fiat. You need an everyday decentralized crypto wallet to make everyday purchases, but for the long term accumulation of wealth, you want a Roth IRA.

What is a Crypto Roth IRA?

Individual retirement accounts (IRAs) are tax-advantaged vehicles designed for long-term savings and investment to build a nest egg for one’s post-career life. While some IRAs are available through your employer, the two most common ones are designed for investors to use on their own. The first is the traditional IRA, established in 1974, while the other is its younger cousin, the Roth IRA, introduced in 1997 and named for its sponsor, Sen. William Roth.

While these accounts are similar, they differ in some key ways — primarily dealing with tax deductions (do you want to owe the IRS now or later?), accessibility of funds, and eligibility standards. Understanding all the distinctions is crucial in deciding which IRA is the better choice for you.

Unlike a stock based IRA account, a Crypto Roth IRA uses a Crypto Exchange Account instead of a standard stock brokerage account.

For 2021 and 2022, you can contribute as much as $6,000 to an IRA, or $7,000 if you’re aged 50 and older. But you must have enough earned income to cover the contribution.

You can also roll over an existing 401k or IRA into a Roth IRA.

You don’t get a tax deduction when you make a contribution to a Roth IRA. This means it doesn’t lower your AGI (Adjusted Growth Income) that year.

But your withdrawals from your Roth IRA during retirement are tax-free!

That’s because you paid the tax bill upfront, so you don’t owe anything on the back end.

Roth IRAs have income-eligibility restrictions. In 2021, singles must have a MAGI of less than $140,000, with contributions being phased out starting with a MAGI of $125,000. Married couples must have modified AGIs of less than $208,000 to contribute to a Roth, and contributions are phased out starting at $198,000.

These limits increase for the 2022 tax year. The MAGI for single filers maxes out at $144,000 and begins to phase out at $129,000 while the MAGI range for married couples filing jointly is $204,000 to $214,000.

For today’s exercise, we want to focus on establishing and making use of the Tax Free Advantage of a Crypto Roth IRA.

For a more detailed deep-dive, please refer to the following articles on Investopedia:

Roth IRA Vs. Traditional IRA: What’s the Difference?

Why Roth IRAs Make Sense for Millennials

4 Crypto IRA Companies to Consider

Today, I want to focus on four of the top Crypto IRA Providers to consider getting started with. Each offer similar features, but also have their strengths and weaknesses. Do Your Own Research and compare to see which one seems right for your needs. Let’s dig in.

#1 — ALTO CRYPTO IRA

ALTO offers you two IRA choices, one you can invest your retirement dollars in alternative assets like startups, metals, NFTs and real estate, the other is called their Crypto IRA and is just for Crypto.

Their website is nicely laid out, it’s clean, colorful and very informative. You don’t need to hunt around to find more details on how everything works and what you can invest in.

Your trades are done through Coinbase offering over 125 crypto assets. We would like to see them roll both IRA types into one and allow you to use your Crypto assets to invest into other investment opportunities like startups, metals and real estate.

Investments are kept secure and safe via Coinbase’s Cold Storage and they take care of annual tax reporting.

Their FAQ section is in depth and they are available to answer any questions you have.

FEES:

While I like that there are $0 Account and $0 Custody fees, I would like to see the Trade Fee at 1.00% in line with the other IRA Companies reviewed, instead of the current 1.5%…now 1.0%

Update 2/1/2022 — Alto has now lowered their fee to 1%, read the story here.

• Monthly Account Fee: $0.00
• Monthly Custody Fee: $0.00
• Trade Fee: 1.0%
• Account Closure Fee: $50.00
• Outbound Wire Transfer Fee: $25.00

Affiliate Program:

Coming soon.

#2 — BITCOIN IRA

At first glance, what Bitcoin IRA offers in terms of Earning Interest from your crypto assets is really appealing, but when you get into the fine print of fees and minimums, the appeal wears off a little. I still find them quite an attractive offering.

Keep in mind, they currently only offer a select few crypto assets — Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Ripple (XRP), Litecoin (LTC), Stellar Lumens (XLM), Zcash (ZEC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ethereum Classic (ETC), and Digital Gold (DG). You can invest entirely in one coin or a combination of multiple coins.

They also just added Physical Gold to the lineup, but there are storage fees involved, so to us does not become an attractive offering compared to some others in our review.

FEES:

Speaking of fees, they are among the highest in our review here. There is an undisclosed Account Opening fee, which you need to call to obtain.

From their FAQ section:

There is an initial one-time service fee that varies depending on your investment amount. This service fee covers our comprehensive services, which include full support services for rollover of retirement funds, complete set up of a self-directed retirement account with BitGo Trust, and best-in-class security storage, among other offerings. In addition, there is a minimal custodian and security fee. Please call our representatives to get the fees for your particular investment amount.

IRA Earn:

One thing I do like about Bitcoin IRA is their IRA Earn program that allows you to currently earn up to 6% interest in your account.

There is a Minimum stake of $10,000 to join the program and there is $100 fee to Start and another $100 fee to Stop the program, so again, these added fees do add up and may not be for everyone. There is an Earnings Calculator on their website to see what your potential is.

Affiliate Program:

Earn up to $75 for each new client you refer.

#3 — iTrustCapital IRA

iTrustCapital states they are the World’s Largest Crypto IRA Platform with over $3.5 Billion in Transactions.

What I like about iTrustCapital is that they continue to expand their offerings and improve for the benefit of the client. Recently they eliminated their monthly account fee to $0 and continue to add new crypto assets.

The website is clean and informative.

Currently they offer about 25 of the top tier cryptocurrencies plus precious metals — all accounts are held in cold storage using Curv, the first and only Multi-Party Computation (MPC) digital asset wallet solution to achieve SOC 2 Type II status.

For Precious Metals, iTrustCapital utilizes VaultChain™, investment-grade
gold and silver held physically at the Royal Canadian Mint with ownership managed via a secure blockchain distributed ledger. Clients place trades through iTrust’s interface which executes through precious metals leader Kitco. There are no storage fees.

One thing unique about iTrustCapital is the ability to transfer a current Crypto IRA ‘In-Kind’ — meaning that in most cases you do not need to liquidate your cryptocurrency to do it and with no fees.

Read more about how this works and new client experiences on their website. If you’re currently being taken advantage of with high account fees, this alone can be worth the switch.

FEES:

• Monthly Fee: $0
• Trade Fee: 1%
• Gold: $50 over Spot Price
• Silver: $2.50 over Spot Price
• Storage Fees: $0
• Minimum Investment: $2,500

Affiliate Program:

iTrustCapital has a unique program where you get paid per open account whether the customer funds it or not, though their website doesn’t state how much that is.

In addition, the new customer account receives $100 reward when they create and fund a new account.

#4 — CHOICE IRA

Choice IRA was started by Kingdom Trust in 2017. Kingdom Trust is an independent qualified custodian regulated by the South Dakota Division of Banking and was Founded in 2009.

Accordingly, their stated mission is to reach the 7.1 M bitcoiners with dollars but not bitcoin in their retirement accounts.

They have three Membership Options and it was a little confusing to understand how each worked.

1. Has No Annual Fee except a 1% Digital Asset Trading Fee
2. Has a 1% Digital Asset Custody Fee + a 1% Digital Asset Trading Fee where your assets are kept in Choice’s Cold Storage powered by Fidelity.
3. Is a Hold Your Keys option powered by Casa and incurs a 1% Digital Asset Fee but could not find details on how you actually hold your own keys.

So while I really wanted to like Choice IRA, their website was not very informative, it was hard to find details on how it all worked.

There were sporadic paragraphs saying:

• Buy and sell digital assets, stocks, ETFs and more from one account.
• Choice members can trade via Interactive Brokers and Kraken from a single account. Or use cash to buy gold, land and more.

FEES:

As stated above there are three membership options to choose, each with its own fee schedule.

In additional to the 1% Digital Trading Fee, there is an up to 0.26% Kraken Fee.

Under their Support area which itself was hard to locate, there is a Section called Manage My Account with a Topic — What Are My Fees? It states:

That depends on what fee schedule you are on. For most Self-Directed IRA, Solo 401(k) and other custodial account holders, you are on the Standard Fee Schedule. Choice by KT also has fee schedules specific to particular assets or investing methods, such as our Precious Metals, Crowdfunding and Single-Member LLC Fee Schedules. Please see your fee schedule for a specific breakdown of fees.

The link to that Fee Schedule is here.

Affiliate Program:

None

CRYPTO IRA Review Summary

Having an after-tax ROTH IRA is something every US Crypto Investor should have.

1. Investments grow tax-free.
2. You can start withdrawing funds at 59 1/2.

Each of the above companies allow you to invest in the core cryptocurrencies of BTC and ETH as well as several others. Some allow more than others, as well as Precious Metals.

The big difference are the FEES.

While we like that BitcoinIRA offers the ability to Earn Interest on top of your holdings and is something we would like to see all the others add to their products, their fees simply don’t warrant using them.

Choice IRA, offers three memberships types but I find them too complicated to recommend. The process needs to streamlined, user documentation clear and it has to be easy to use for a novice investor. Keep an eye on them as they continue to improve.

My reviews find that ALTO and iTrustCapital are my personal favorites and like that their websites are very clear and carry $0 fees except for the Trading Fee.

Editor’s Choice — iTrustCapital

What sets iTrustCapital apart from the others is:

• $0 Monthly Account Fees
• 1% Trading Fee
• No Precious Metals Storage Fees
• Utilizes Cold Storage from CURV
• Ability to Transfer ‘In-Kind’ IRA from others Crypto IRAs without liquidating assets.
• Extensive Guides and Knowledge Base, as well as top tier Customer Service.
• Excellent Affiliate Program.

I would recommend they drop the Minimum Amount to Open an Account from $2,500 to something like $100.

Runner Up — ALTO CRYPTO IRA

While ALTO offers up to 125 cryptocurrencies via Coinbase, the two areas that I found concerning was

1. They charge a 1.50% Trading Fee where iTrustCapital only charges a 1% Fee. Update 2/1/2022, they listened and now their fee is 1.0%!
2. They do not offer Precious Metals in their CryptoIRA.

ALTO could become the premier IRA choice if they rolled their separate ALTO IRA into their Crypto IRA program and reduced the Trading Fee to a 1% .

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Open an ALTO CRYPTO ROTH IRA Today!

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About the author:

Jeffrey Clarke is a researcher, investor, writer, author, speaker, photographer and has been in the computer industry for over 30 years. A graduate of the Lansdale School of Business, he holds a degree in Computer Science and has run several businesses in the import/export, investment, real estate development and computer consulting industries.

Crypto and Investment Experience:
Since the 1990’s he started investing in gold/silver, real estate and has recently diversified into Bitcoin and Crypto currencies.

Editorial Topics and Publication Management:
• Unbanking yourself and using crypto.
• Preparing for Retirement.
• Altcoin Company Analysis and interviews.
• Companies meeting real world solutions using crypto.
• The future of NFTs.
• Visionary elements of living in cashless society.

Personal Hobbies and Interests:
• Philanthropy efforts in Making the World a Better Place.
• Hiking and camping.
• Photography.
• Good food, good fellowship and learning about new cultures.

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