Investing in cryptocurrency in a traditional IRA is tax-deductible, assuming you meet certain income thresholds set by the IRS. When you withdraw your IRA in cash, you'll owe regular income taxes for withdrawing funds, as long as you wait until retirement age. Transfer your existing IRA or start a new one. In general, a Bitcoin IRA works much like a regular IRA, except that you invest your money in cryptocurrencies instead of mutual fund stocks.
Be wary of any Gold IRA scam that may be presented to you as an alternative investment option. You can't withdraw IRA funds without penalty until you reach retirement age, which the IRS currently sets at 59 and a half years. Instead of the one-time buying experience offered by most brokerage firms, where you can create an IRA and buy and sell securities in one place, you may need to do a little more DIY with a Bitcoin IRA. When IRAs contain traditional assets, this custodian is usually a bank or other large financial institution. If you have a particular cryptocurrency exchange that you want to invest in, make sure that your Bitcoin IRA provider allows it.
This is because “Bitcoin IRAs are certainly not configured to adapt to traditional assets such as stocks, bonds and mutual funds,” Blaskey says. As you research Bitcoin IRA custodians, remember that you'll want to make sure that the types of accounts, exchanges, and cryptocurrencies available fit your objectives. The self-directed buying and selling of cryptocurrencies through a cryptocurrency IRA is not supported by the IRS or any regulatory agency. iTrustCapital uses a state-authorized and regulated trust company to maintain self-managed IRAs and guard clients' assets.
While a small long-term exposure to cryptocurrencies through these self-directed IRA accounts may be a profitable bet, before jumping into cryptocurrencies, we must consider their speculative nature, the rules and sanctions that apply to self-directed IRAs, and the changing nature of regulations towards virtual currencies. This makes it easy to invest those funds in just about any asset you want, including cryptocurrencies that aren't compatible with other cryptocurrency IRA providers. Second, if you have an employer-sponsored plan, you can convert it into a cumulative IRA that allows for cryptocurrency. Since the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) considers cryptocurrencies to be property for tax purposes, you can add them to an IRA if the IRA buys and maintains them.
A self-directed, cryptocurrency-compatible Roth IRA allows you to purchase cryptocurrencies with IRA funds and deposit them into the account. This makes trading easier and means that the platform can support more currencies than most cryptocurrency IRA providers. For example, a Bitcoin IRA company could partner with a particular exchange or allow it to trade any third-party cryptocurrency exchange.
