This guide will conduct a complete Bitcoin IRA review. We will start with explaining Bitcoin IRA and conduct a 360-degree review to understand its worthiness, authenticity and other essential aspects. In case you already understand what Bitcoin IRA is, what Self Directed IRAs are, then you can skip the following sections and directly jump to Bitcoin IRA review.

What is Bitcoin IRA

Bitcoin IRA was founded in 2015 by Camilo Concha, Johannes Haze, and Chris Kline. The company is based in Sherman Oaks, California.

BitcoinIRA is the first and one of the largest crypto IRA company. Bitcoin IRA is a self directed IRA account which allows you the flexibility to further diversify your retirement IRA funds to in cryptocurrencies and precious metals like Gold and Silver. Let us explore the terms Self Directed IRAs further. As said earlier, in case you already are aware of these concepts, please trespass these sections to jump straight to our Bitcoin IRA review.

What are Self Directed IRAs

• A self-directed IRA (SDIRA) is a form of traditional IRA. It offers the same tax advantages and the same contribution limits as the traditional IRA. However, the SDIRA allows you to invest in a broader yet potentially riskier and potentially more rewarding portfolio of financial products, which are not included in the traditional IRA. These potentially riskier and more rewarding financial products include real estate, cryptocurrencies, precious metals, and other forms of alternative investments.
• SDIRA allows you to manage your portfolio, besides being administered by a custodian or trustee.
• Stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and other relatively popular and comparatively safer investments are often the only products kept in regular/traditional IRAs. SDIRAs have a lot more options. You could, invest in real estate, cryptos, precious metals, and other forms of alternative investments.
• To proceed, you need a qualified IRA custodian that specializes in that type of account or investment. Banks, trust corporations, and other organizations that are approved by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) are examples of custodians.

Bitcoin IRA review

Gauging the goodness of any crypto IRA depends on a few primary factors:

• The number of cryptocurrencies the crypto IRA allows investments to
• Additional assets (besides crypto) available in the IRA for investment
• Minimum Account Balance you need to maintain
• Transaction Fee for trading crypto
• Quality of Customer Services
• Ease of setting up the account and the most important
• Security of funds in the IRA

A complete review of BitcoinIRA on different parameters is given below.

Ease of use

Quick and easy setup. Bitcoin IRA also gives you sufficient educational videos and articles to set up your account and also work through any issues that may arise.

A number of educational videos on how to set up your account, how to self trade, tour of your dashboard are given in their Knowledge Center here.

Tax advantage

Cryptocurrency investments are taxable. Cryptocurrencies are treated as an asset or property and a Capital Gains Tax (CGT) is levied on it.

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But when you buy and sell cryptocurrencies using a crypto IRA platform like Bitcoin IRA or iTrustCapital or Alto IRA, you get the same tax advantage as you enjoy in your traditional IRA accounts.

This means that the amount of cryptocurrency investments you made in the year using the Bitcoin IRA platform will be deducted from your taxable income.

Say your taxable income is $10,000 for the year and you made an investment of $2000 in the Bitcoin IRA buying cryptocurrencies. Then $2000 is deducted from your taxable income of $10,000 to calculate your net taxable income, i.e. $8000.

However, please note there is a defined limit on the amount of money you can claim for tax savings in a year in your IRA account.

Fees and the minimum amount needed to open an account

BitcoinIRA is comparatively higher in terms of the fees that it charges from investors. Particularly it is significantly higher compared to peer crypto IRA platforms like Alto crypto IRA and iTrustCapital IRA.

There are three types of fees namely a set-up fee, a trading fee, and a maintenance fee, which depend on the amount you are investing. The bad part is that these are not clearly mentioned in their website. One needs to contact and check customer service for the specific numbers.

• Set-up fee 3.99%
• Trading fee 2%
• Maintenance fee 0.0008% (minimum $20)

In BitcoinIRA the minimum amount needed to open an account is $3000. This means that you need to make the first investment of at least $3000 to open your account. However, BitcoinIRA also offers Saver IRA that allows you to make an initial investment of $100 followed by monthly recurring $100 investments from a bank linked to your IRA.

Rollover from traditional IRA accounts

You can simply rollover your traditional IRA accounts like Roth, SEP, Employer Plan 401(k) and other existing IRA accounts to Bitcoin IRA. You can either transfer all or a part of your cryptocurrencies from your IRA account into the Bitcoin IRA account. Please be wary of the tax consequences that might occur as a result of the rolling over of assets from traditional IRA accounts to the Bitcoin IRA account.

Customer services

Prompt customer service. BitcoinIRA also provides a library of resources to learn cryptocurrency investments.

A number of educational videos on how to set up your account, how to self trade, tour of your dashboard are given in their Knowledge Center here.

• Phone: 877-936-7175
• Schedule a 15 minutes call with an expert: You can also try and schedule a 15 minutes call with a cryptocurrency expert here.

Number of cryptocurrencies and alternate investment options

Bitcoin IRA allows investments into 60 plus different cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Ether, ADA. BitcoinIRA provides the option to diversify your investments to physical gold also. The gold bars are stored in Brink vaults.

Some of the popular cryptocurrencies you could invest in Bitcoin IRA are:

• Bitcoin (BTC)
• Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
• Ethereum (ETH)
• Ethereum Classic (ETC)
• Digital Gold (DG)
• Ripple (XRP)
• Litecoin (LTC)
• Stellar Lumens (XLM)
• Zcash (ZEC)

Intuitive dashboards and educational materials

Bitcoin IRA dashboard provides an intuitive dashboard that presents reports on live price tracking, portfolio performance, etc. It also offers a rich repository of educational videos and more.
Check the price charts here.

Security and insurance

Bitcoin IRA offers one of the best insurance and security to your cryptocurrencies.

• Insurance of $700 million by Lloyd’s of London: BitcoinIRA provides insurance of up to $700 million by Lloyd’s of London to your funds saved in the IRA. This makes it a crypto IRA of choice for most investors.
• World-class security by BitGo: One of the best in the industry. BitcoinIRA offers a military level of protection to your cryptocurrencies. It is secured by BitGo, which is one of the most trusted security providers for on-chain Bitcoin transactions.
  a) The web platform of Bitcoin IRA is secured by 256-bit encrypted SSL trading certification (the same encryption used in blockchains)
  b) All your cryptocurrencies are stores in cold or offline storage.
• US-regulated custodians: Bitcoin IRA only works with US regulated custodians and exchanges that prevents you from being exposed to overseas companies with unidentified local tax and legal laws.

• Note:
• Some taxes may apply in Bitcoin IRA. Please consult your tax, legal, or investment advisor.
• Insurance may vary based on the asset chosen and custody solution available.
• It’s important to note that the assets aren’t covered by SIPC insurance. Even so, though, Bitcoin IRA only works with self-directed IRA custodians regulated in the United States.

Bitcoin IRA-BlockchainFundas overall review

FAQs

Conclusion

Bitcoin IRA is a self-directed IRA that facilitates the investment of your IRA funds in cryptocurrencies and precious metals like Gold. It is the oldest crypto IRA which offers good security for your cryptocurrencies which are kept with custodians in cold storage. However, the fees and comparatively higher as compared to the peer crypto IRAs like iTrustCapital and Alto IRAs.