Directed IRA Podcast

Tax-Free Crypto Investing With a Roth IRA

• Mat Sorensen and Mark Kohler

Share episode

Crypto continues to be one of the fastest-moving asset classes — and when you combine it with the tax-free power of a Roth IRA, it becomes one of the most compelling long-term wealth strategies available.

Join Mat Sorensen (CEO, Directed IRA) and Aaron Halderman (COO, Directed IRA) for a live training session where they break down everything you need to know about investing in crypto inside a Self-Directed Roth IRA. You’ll learn how the structure works, how to access 60+ supported assets, when conversions make sense, when an IRA/LLC is appropriate, and how to stay compliant while maximizing tax-free upside.

Whether you’re an active crypto investor or just exploring tax-efficient strategies, this session will give you the tools to build a smarter, long-term plan for 2026 and beyond.

You’ll Learn
- How crypto investing works inside a Self-Directed IRA
- Why a Roth IRA can generate entirely tax-free crypto gains
- How Traditional-to-Roth conversions work (and what actually triggers tax)
- When an IRA/LLC “exchange account” becomes the right structure
- How to access 60+ supported cryptocurrencies inside your IRA
- How an HSA can also be used for crypto investing

Why Directed IRA?
At Directed IRA, we’ve helped thousands of investors put over $3 billion into real estate, private funds, notes, and more, all inside tax-advantaged retirement accounts. Our team of experts and streamlined platform make it easy to invest with confidence.

Directed IRA Homepage: https://directedira.com/

Directed IRA Explore (Linktree): https://linktr.ee/SelfDirectedIRA

Book a Call: https://directedira.com/appointment/


Other:
Mat Sorensen: https://matsorensen.com & https://linktr.ee/MatSorensen
KKOS: https://kkoslawyers.com
Main Street Business https://mainstreetbusiness.com



SPEAKER_00:

Welcome everyone to the Directed IRA webinar. This is Matt Sornson, CEO, founder of Directed IRA. So excited to be with you talking about how to use your tax advantage funds, Roth IRA, Traditional RA, HSA, to purchase crypto as an investment. I know if you're new to this, that might sound groundbreaking. Wait, my IRA can own crypto? Yes, it can. We're going to break that down today. We've been doing this, by the way, for quite a long time. We've been helping clients pioneering this opportunity. So if you're someone who believes in crypto as an asset class, I just want you to know your Roth IRA can own it and do this totally tax-free. Your other tax advantage funds, retirement accounts, that old 401k laying around that's invested and you don't even know what it is. Well, if you believe in crypto, maybe you can invest some of those dollars that are tax advantage into the asset you know and believe in. All right. Now I've got Aaron Halderman, the great and powerful. He's our CEO here, uh partner in directed IRA. And he's gonna go over some ground rules for today. And then we just want to give you some awesome education on how this strategy can work, the pieces and kind of the steps you need to take to execute on this. And we got some new announcements too.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh, but a couple uh groundbreaking announcements. So uh you'll want to stay on because about halfway through, we uh we do have a special announcement on our institutional accounts that you're gonna be able to use an IRA LC or a solo 401k. If you need to do a new one, that's fine. If you already have one, that's great. You're one step ahead on how you can use that um in an easy process that we put together with the strategic relationships. We're gonna outline that. Um, also, we have a bunch of people live. There's several hundred of you. We're gonna do a rapid fire QA at the very end. Uh, we'll take some questions throughout that I'll be moderating, grabbing some good ones, uh, just stay on topic with the the topic of the webinar being the crypto space today. If we don't get to them, that's totally fine. Just head over to our website, directedira.com. In the upper right hand corner, you can hit, you know, schedule a call, book a call, and talk to one of our IRA account executives. You can spend 15 minutes with them, 30 minutes, whatever you need, totally free to help you get started setting up a new crypto IRA. Uh, I will be looking at the QA section, try and drop them over there versus the chat. I'll go back and forth because not everybody likes to follow rules or pay attention, but that's okay if that's you. But I prefer if you popped it over in the QA. So we'll uh it's gonna be a good uh topic session today. So we're excited to roll. And we even have some special slides for you. So here we go.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, we're you know, we'll be able to download the slides. I don't know if we share them in the chat here, but we'll make them available to you. And of course, like Aaron said, this will be recorded so you can come back and enjoy this again or share it with your friends or family. All right, well, let's dive into this. And first, right now, crypto is down. So it might be an opportunity to buy. Um, I don't know. We're not here to give you financial advice about what to buy, when to buy, but we do know crypto has been an asset that's had significant run over the last 10 years. And we want to just let you know you can own this in a tax advantage account. We're gonna break down how that works. Now, let's go to the slides here. I just want to show you the first thing here. We're gonna go back to 2017, Matt. Okay. I was wearing my best suit back then. Um, I still have that tie, by the way.

SPEAKER_01:

You even have a spread collar on.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, the spread collar. I still rock the spread collar every once in a while. It's a classic pocket square. It's classic, you know. So um, but that video right there is um the I shot a video about how you can buy Bitcoin with your retirement account. All right. Now, this strategy I used, I used an IRA LC. I'm gonna go over how that works today. It's one strategy to use. It's actually not the easiest or most common anymore, but there's an application for it we're gonna talk about later here. But back at that time, Bitcoin was$2,500 per BTC. It's been around$100,000, you know, plus or minus here. It's been going up and down, but let's say it's 100,000 BTC. Um, so I've had a pretty incredible return on that investment. And if you think about how can I keep all of the money, well, why don't we use the strategy and this account that's staring us in the face? We've all heard about it. It's a Roth IRA. Okay. You might use it for a stock or a mutual fund that maybe goes up 10%. But what about using that structure and that strategy for an asset that can have phenomenal returns? Okay. And this doesn't have to be Bitcoin. This could be XRP or Salon or whatever crypto it is that you might believe in. Um, invest in it. If you have conviction it's gonna have a high return, you should be using that Roth IRA account to do it. All right, so let's break this down. I just want to let you know we've been doing this for a while. Um, we're not just like coming to the block because this is the cool thing to do. Um, we've been out there and um found it to be a super valuable strategy for people who believe in this as an asset class. All right, now keep in mind when you're buying or selling crypto, the government's gonna tax you on that. All right, now there's some tax rules that came out, and this is way back from 2019, um, where the IRS updated, excuse me, some of their guidance on this. I wrote an article on Entrepreneur Magazine about this. I've been publishing Cryptopedia as well. But the first thing they said is you have short-term and long-term capital gains, just like when you're buying stocks. So if I'm trading crypto and I own it less than 12 months, I have short-term capital gains rates, right? That means it's taxed at whatever my regular income tax rate is. So if I'm in a 37%, the highest bracket, and I own crypto for six months and I sold it, well, you pay a 37% federal income tax plus your state tax. Now, obviously, if you own it for over a year, you get long-term capital gain rates. But the point here is, is if I made a$100,000 gain on crypto, I didn't really make$100,000. Federal government's taking 20, the state might take five. You really made$75,000. All right. So how can I keep all of that money, whether I'm trading and trying to build this over a long time, a portfolio I can retire on later, or whether I'm just buying and holding and sitting in this asset, but I got to sell at it one day to actually live on this, right? And I gotta exchange this crypto for USD or whatever it might be to actually have um some money I can live on. So um, so we want to get out of this taxation. And um, if we look at here, I just got an example of how these different accounts work. If I buy crypto, let's say I bought$20,000 of Bitcoin and I sell it six months later for$30,000. So I made$10,000 gain, right? If I did that personally, just in my regular wallet, okay, this is just Matt Sorensen owns this. It's not in uh a traditional or Roth IRA yet. All right, I will I made$10,000, I actually only got$6,500 of that. Okay. The IRS and the state came in there, uh, let's say I'm in a 30% tax bracket, federal and 5% state. Okay. So if I'm someone trying to compound and grow wealth over time, if you think about that, you know, that difference in gain there, right? In this example here, I had a$10,000 gain. That gain getting eaten into 35% by taxes is atrocious when we look at compounding this over 10, 20, 30 years, which is how a lot of people think about building wealth, let alone just the 3,500 bucks I gotta send now. So if we go to the next step and talk about a traditional IRA, okay, now I've got that same$10,000 gain. Um but when I'm buying and selling crypto in a traditional account, no taxes, right? So I've got this$10,000 gain for the six-month hold period, reinvest the whole thing. Now I've got a$30,000 account working for me rather than the brokerage account over here, by the way, which would only be a$26,500 account, or the I should say the personal wallet or exchange account. So it's gonna take a hell of a lot longer for me to build that up and get gains and returns personally holding crypto, particularly if I'm trading, than it is with a traditional IRA where I get every penny gets to be reinvested and grow and compound. Now the last column here we have is the Roth IRA. Now, this is the creme de la creme. This is where you want to be because I get a$10,000 gain, no tax as that money is building up, no tax as I pull the money out. Remember, on a traditional account, and the downside of traditional accounts is when I start pulling that money out later, once I hit 59 and a half and I'm wanting to live off of this crypto, well, as I start selling that crypto and taking a distribution, well, I pay tax at ordinary income rates. This is whether you're selling a mutual fund or an index fund or real estate in your IRA, whatever it is in a traditional account, you pay taxes as you pull the money out. Now there's no penalty, a 10% penalty that's before 59 and a half, but I still have to take it into my income. So traditional IRAs are tax deferred. You're taxed later when you pull the money out in retirement. So if I think of like trading crypto now personally, I'm taxed now as I'm making money. As I'm doing it in a traditional IRA, I'm taxed later. It's tax deferred. I'm building up money, I'm not paying taxes as I go, but eventually I got to pay the piper, the IRS, as I pull the money out at 59 and a half. And then the Roth IRA is the best deal out there. That's the tax never. So if you're thinking about how should I buy crypto right now, and what are my three options? Do I want to be taxed now? Do I want to be taxed later? Or do I want to be tax never? I think you should choose the last one, tax never. Why not? Okay. The government has given you options and they say, here's accounts. When you make money, here's how we tax you. You should be using the Roth IRA. Okay, that's the most popular account strategy we have for clients using a crypto Roth IRA. Okay, so the first point here is we can do this in a more strategic manner in building wealth in crypto if that's what you believe in. Now, there's an article in Cryptopedia here. We have this is also on our website at directory.com. You go to the crypto page, you can kind of look at this. I basically analyzed the same strategy here and the same issue and talked about buying 10,000 of Bitcoin in 2017, which is back when I bought crypto, and showing you how much you get to keep versus the IRS. Bottom line here, and I'm harping on this of the Roth IRA because I want you to think Roth IRA when you're thinking of crypto, because it's totally tax-free. I get to keep all the money. All right. Now let's jump over to how do I do this? Because you might be thinking, well, Matt, I have an IRA at my bank or credit union or Merrill Lynch, and they say you can't own crypto in an IRA. Or that I can maybe buy the Bitcoin ETF and that's it. What if I want to buy Solana or I want to buy XRP or I actually want to own the Bitcoin? How do I do that? Well, it takes what's called a crypto IRA. So if you have your IRA account, let's say, at Merrill Lynch, okay, and not to pick on them, but just as an example here. And let's let's say that's a Roth IRA already. You would open up a Roth IRA, a crypto Roth IRA at directed IRA. We would transfer that money, no tax, and maybe you've got 200 grand over at Merrill Lynch. You're like, well, I want to do 50K in crypto. Cool. Transfer over 50K. Leave the other 150 doing what you're doing over at Merrill Lynch. Transfer over 50, no tax, no penalty. That goes into your crypto Roth IRA at directed IRA. And now what we've done is in partnership with Gemini, you have an exchange account and wallet with Gemini. Your crypto Roth IRA at directed IRA will own that. You don't own it. If you own it, this is going in your 1040. Your crypto Roth IRA owns it. Or you could be your crypto HSA or traditional IRA. Just hang with me. I've given the Roth here as the example. Okay. Now we put five that 50K, which your Roth IRA owns, tax-qualified funds, not taxable, going to come out totally tax-free at 59.5 for you. And now you can go in there and trade those dollars in Gemini. Whatever crypto is on the Gemini Exchange, from Solana, XRP, Bitcoin, Ethereum, whatever your fancy is, you can buy and sell on there. No taxes as you're trading, short term or long term, doesn't matter. And no taxes as the money comes out later at retirement. So that is the first level of this is I already have a Roth IRA and I want to get over to the crypto Roth IRA. Now let's hit another example. Let's say you're like, Matt, I've got a traditional IRA with e-trade. Okay. And um, but I want to do this crypto IRA. Now you've got two choices. You could say, I'll just do a crypto traditional IRA, and I'll do the taxed later idea, this tax-deferred idea. I'm already doing a traditional IRA with stocks or mutual funds or what I'm doing. I got my tax deductions when I put money in that traditional account. I've liked it. And so your first option is just open up a traditional crypto IRA at directed IRA. We transfer over the funds, the whole amount or a portion, whatever you want. Again, no tax, no penalty. And then we go to the same process here. Your crypto IRA, crypto traditional IRA will own a Gemini exchange account. You have a wallet there. You can go in and trade. Okay, whenever you want. 365, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, whenever you want, you can go trade. Now you might say, well, Matt, I want to go to Roth now. I was okay doing traditional with stocks and mutual funds because maybe I'm getting five percent 10% return over there. But if I'm doing crypto and I really believe in this asset, it's gonna go 10x, 100x over my career of investing in this thing. I want to go Roth now. Okay. Well, you can do what's called a Roth conversion app. So what we'll do is now you open up a crypto, traditional, and Roth account. We have it all in one at directed. You transfer over the traditional dollars. We receive it in a traditional account and immediately convert it over to Roth. Now you've got Roth dollars and you're trading and doing crypto with Roth dollars. This could be an old employer 401k that's traditional dollars, an existing traditional IRE, doesn't matter. But we're gonna, again, open up the crypto, Roth and traditional account. We have to receive it as traditional because it's traditional dollars, and we do this Roth conversion. But that's been another popular strategy for a lot of crypto investors too, is they want to get to Roth and they want to do the tax-free type structure, but they're sitting over here in traditional dollars right now. And when they're buying stocks or mutual funds, they were fine with that. But as they think about peeling off a certain portion of this to go do crypto where they're hoping and believing the asset will do a significant return, they're converting over to Roth. Now, again, you can just stay as traditional and do that tax later, tax-deferred structure, pay the taxes later on the way out. Um, but you can also convert over to Roth. Now, you can also do a health savings account. Okay, we have clients, my crypto's done, I've my health savings account's done crypto. So your health, my Roth IRA does crypto, all right? My Roth 401k has bought crypto. So you can have a health savings account that, and this could be, you know, your health savings account at the bank or whatever health savings account provider you're using, Charles Schwab, I don't care. That health savings account dollars, those dollars could be transferred over to a health savings account, a crypto HSA at directed IRA, and now you're using those crypto dollars. Now the account types are endless here. We have clients doing kids' Roth IRAs. All right, they have kids that work in their business or they have a summer job or um they work on their rental property, whatever it might be, and they're paying their kids. So their kids have earned income because you need earned income to do a Roth IRA. And then those Roth IRA dollars are in a kids Roth IRA at directed, again, linked to a Gemini Exchange account, and they're buying and trading crypto and the parent typically do on their kids' behalf as guardian, the person responsible on the account. So you've got the kids' Roth account option. So basically, what I'm getting at here is all of these tax advantage account opportunities that you hear about building wealth that you may already have for stocks or mutual funds or other assets, we have available at directed IRA. And you can do it to buy and invest in crypto. So what we've done is we've partnered all these tax advantage account opportunities that we do at directed IRA. We've linked into Gemini Exchange accounts through a special relationship with Gemini where your account owns that Gemini account. Very important because your social is not on there for tax reporting purposes. REIN is for directed as a reporting tax administrator, as a reporting retirement account administrator, which means this isn't hitting your 1040. Okay, so I want to take a break there for a second here. Um uh as we've outlined the first strategy here, which is our classic product, the most common, which is the crypto IRA. You have lots of account options. The most common way you go to fund this is transferring over existing retirement account dollars. Um, we've gone over some strategies, health savings account. You can even move those over. Talked about the kids' Roth IRA, you can put money over. Another one I want to hit here, okay, and I'm just riffing here, I guess. That's okay.

SPEAKER_01:

You warming up? Yeah. I mean, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm just kind of rolling with it here, okay. Is I want you to think about a backdoor Roth IRA. Because you might be sitting there thinking, well, Matt, I already got retirement account dollars, or maybe I'm self-directing and I'm doing real estate or private assets or other things that I believe in. And um, but I want to do some crypto and maybe I could do a Roth IRA, but I've heard I'm high income. I make, you know, make over 150K a year single or 225 a year married. These numbers adjust every year, but I'm high income, I'm over those thresholds. I can't contribute to a Roth IRA. Well, you could do a backdoor Roth IRA. Okay. So if you're a high income earner, you do what's called a backdoor Roth IRA, which we have for crypto as well, and has been super popular for a lot of crypto investors, where you put money into a traditional IRA. It's a non-deductible contribution, which is just something you note on your 1040. You convert it to Roth. You never took a deduction when you put that 7,000 in.$7,500, by the way, for 2026. So right now you can put in seven grand for 2025. And in 45 days here, you can put in another$7,500 for 2026. So I can have$14,500 in this backdoor Roth IRA here in the next 45 days that I could use to go and buy crypto. So, but again, you put the money in, a non-deductible traditional contribution, you convert it to Roth, no tax on the conversion because I didn't take a deduction. Now I've magically got Roth dollars. So this is one of the most exploited loopholes in the tax code. Okay, you can do this, you can do a backdoor Roth IRA at Fidelity or any other provider, they'll make you buy stock or stuff like that. But here you can use that backdoor Roth IRA strategy for self-directing or here for a crypto IRA. Now, one other structural point I want to make is a crypto IRA is different than a self-directed IRA. Okay. We are a provider of retirement accounts that are like, we're open architecture. We're like, invest in what you want to invest in. We're not telling you what to invest in. I'm not giving you investment advice. We don't know. We want you to have conviction of what to invest in or working with whatever professionals you may be working with. So if you're like, well, I want to do real estate, well, that's a self-directed IRA. I want to invest in a private fund. That's a self-directed IRA. When you're like, I want to do crypto, we have a special crypto IRA. The reason being is we need to link it with an exchange and we don't want it mixed within all of your other assets. So that's why we have a separate crypto IRA product that we partnered with Gemini, because you need to on-ramp with an exchange. You want to have reliable custody. Gemini's publicly traded, one of the tightest on security and regulatory and audits. You'll find out they're in an entire industry. That's the reason we picked them as our special relationship partner. And a lot of the most popular cryptocurrencies we see clients that they want to invest in XRP, Solana, Ethereum, Bitcoin, they have all those cryptocurrencies available on their platform that you can buy and trade. So um, so that is the crypto IRA product. Um, backdoor Roth IRA is an option, transferring over existing funds. Don't forget about health savings account or crypto Roth IRA for your kids. Now you might be thinking, how much does this cost? Must be thousands, Matt. Um, this is I'm I feel like I want to Today's your lucky day.

SPEAKER_01:

It's like an infomercial.

SPEAKER_00:

You must be thinking this cost millions. No. Um well, our annual account fee is$295 on the crypto IRA. It's a$50 account establishment fee. And then we have a half a percent trade fee. Now, this trade fee is happening at the time you're trading on Gemini, and that's inclusive of our fee and the fee that Gemini is trading. All right. So um, but that's it. That's your total account fees there. Um, and you can pay the annual fee and the establishment fee with a credit card or debit card when you establish the account. Um then the trade fee, of course, is happening at the time of trade and is just coming out there um as you're actually trading.

SPEAKER_01:

So buying and selling on Gemini's exchange at that time that you're buying and selling is that half a point, 50 basis points. So Gemini's collecting that right at the time of trade.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. A lot of times you won't even see it if you're not paying too close of attention, but it is being collected there, just heads up. And um, if you're just buying and holding, you then there's you know, you just have the 295 annual fee. Um, otherwise, you're gonna have the trade fee depending on how many trades you're doing at the time. So it's 50 basis points, which um that comes out to a half a percent on the trades.

SPEAKER_01:

So just to reiterate, uh Robert, great question. A few other people have asked too like, what if I already have an account at directed IRA? It's invested in real estate or promissory notes or maybe even precious metals. Um, do I need to have another account or can I use that account? Uh the answer is that you need another crypto IRA account. Again, it could be a traditional, a Roth, an HSA, an ESA, an inherited account, any type that we offer already that's a self-direct can also be a specific crypto IRA account that will have access to the Gemini exchange to trade and sell cryptos.

SPEAKER_00:

Like that's what I do. Like, so I have my crypto Roth IRA. I have a separate Roth IRA that's invested in private companies and other private assets, notes and things like that. And so those are two different account types. And it's because of crypto and frankly, all the regulatory stuff, stuff for risk management purposes, and as we created these products, we needed them separate from your other assets and easily to be able to integrate with Gemini in terms of how we're tracking that and reporting that. So that's there's some real rationale behind it there of why it needed to be a separate account. But um now, for those of you that have an IRA LLC, though, let's say you have an your self-directed IRA owns an LLC that owns real estate or other private assets. We're gonna come to an option here in a minute here where we're gonna go over how you can establish an institutional account with Gemini through us for your LLC.

SPEAKER_01:

So for all of you that keep typing in on who holds the keys, how that works, can I move into a uh cold storage or a physical hard wallet? We're we're about to get there. So just hang tight.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. So, you know, and I do both of these. I do all the stuff we're talking about here. I do all this stuff. When I talk about you can invest in a private company, you can buy real estate, you can do private lending, you can buy crypto. I've done all this stuff with my account. Um, and I have these different account types. I got the crypto Roth IRA, I have a self-directed Roth IRA, I have a checkbook LLC with another account, I got a self-directed health savings account. And so you might have multiple accounts and different buckets of stuff that you're doing. Now, as to the crypto Roth IRA or crypto IRA in general, it doesn't matter the account type with Gemini. You are with Gemini, okay? So and you will be on exchange with Gemini. Now they don't leave everybody's crypto on exchange, they only have a certain amount available that they need for trading. Um, and and Gemini, whether you like them or not, I'm just saying they've been a great relationship partner with us. Um they are audited by Deloitte. Go read up on their trust and security stuff that they have that can give you comfort with that. Um, and so if you feel comfortable with that, then that's the crypto IRA. Okay. Now, if you're like, Matt, my keys, my crypto, I'm not letting that stay on anybody's exchange. I don't care who it is. Um, I want to hold the keys or I want to be off exchange. Well, we have an option now. We're gonna go over for you.

unknown:

All right.

SPEAKER_00:

Any questions though on the crypto IRA before I get to the next one?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, let me let me hit just a couple before we um get to today's exciting announcement. Um what's the process of if I already have an IRA somewhere else and I now want to do a crypto IRA? So I have a you know, a Roth IRA at Fidelity or Vanguard or even Robinhood, and now I want to do a crypto IRA. How does that work?

SPEAKER_00:

All right, it's a three-step process. So, step one is you'll open the crypto IRA, choose the account type. That could be Roth IRA, traditional IRA depends on what you already have if you're moving over. So let's say it's a Roth IRA at Robinhood. Okay, so you'll open a crypto Roth IRA at directed IRA. You can do fully online. You don't even have to talk to anybody here. We want to talk to you if you want to and need help, but you can do it fully online yourself. You don't even need to talk to anybody. Okay, so that's step one. Open the account. You can do that in five to 10 minutes. Okay, simple. Step two, you need to fund the account. Well, if the money's over at Robinhood, we're gonna submit a transfer request to Robinhood to say, hey, they want to send the whole account over here or a partial amount. Maybe you've got 100K at Robinhood and you're like, I want to send 50K over to my crypto IRA at directed IRA. Now, this is a transfer request form that we will submit for you. You'll we'll need your authorization, of course, and information on, hey, this is my account at Robinhood, it's account one, two, three, four, five, send us a copy of your statement. That's the easiest. We're gonna go request those funds. No tax, no penalty. Okay, that's step two. Now we've got that money in your account. This is gonna come in USD. So if you've got the money invested at Robinhood, you want to get that down to cash, the whatever it's 50 or 100, however that amount is in your scenario that you want transfer over in cash. So we receive that in cash at directed. Step three is you're gonna go invest the funds. Now we don't make investment decisions. You decide what you want to invest in. That money, once it hits your account at directed, we put it as USD into your Gemini Exchange trading account. And you're the authorized trader on the account to make whatever trading decisions you want. So you'll be the one logging in there to go decide what crypto to buy, when, whatever parameters you want to put on it. We even have clients using trading algos like ArchPublic we did in our last webinar. It's up to you. You can go monitor it, you can buy and hold, you can trade all the time, you can use an algo like ArchPublic. That's the only one that's approved on our stuff. So um, so that's how the that's the one, two, three. Open, fund, invest. Now the fund could be a new contribution too. You gave this scenario of someone wanting to come from, say, Robinhood. But if you're like, well, Matt, I'm just maybe I want to do a new health savings account and I got a family HSA I could do. I got a high deductible plan, and my kids are on, my wife, my spouse, or whatever. I'm gonna do an HSA. Just do a new count. You can put over eight grand into an HSA every year, and you could do a crypto HSA, or that could be your 7,000 Roth IRA contribution for 2025. And again, 7,500 in 2026. So um lots of options on just how to get it funded, but it all remains the same. Open, get it funded, new contribution, transfer, rollover, and then you're the one making the investment decisions, and that'll be through Gemini, which you can do on the mobile app or you can do on their desktop interface. And just a little tip for those of you that used to charge more on the mobile app. Um, we have that negotiated down though. So it is the same half a percent trade fee, whether you're trading on mobile app or you're trading on desktop.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, the a few other questions. Our crypto IRA product is with Gemini specifically, so it's Gemini's exchange. We're gonna get to the institutional stuff here in one second, but let me just ask a clarifying question because there's a lot of the the same question that keeps coming in and we need some clarity on it, which I think will benefit everyone. So I have um a Roth IRA at Vanguard. Again, it's not in crypto. It's obviously it's just in the markets. And I want it, do I need to open a crypto Roth? Or do I have to start by opening just a self-directed Roth at directed IRA?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, you'll just if you have they have a Roth IRA at Vanguard. Yes. Okay, you're just gonna go straight to a crypto Roth IRA at directed IRA. The self-directed IRAs at directed IRA are for private funds, real estate, and LLC. Okay, the crypto IRA is for crypto. And if you're like, I'm buying crypto, do the crypto IRA. Okay. So um it may it sound confusing because we have two different approaches because it's crypto for crypto and self-directed for everything else. Um, but that's how it works, structured that way. Um, so you just go straight to the crypto IRA. Now, if you're like, well, I want to do real estate too, I want to invest in a private company or a startup or do some private lending. That's a separate self directed IRA. You would actually have two accounts, which is what I have. I have a crypto Roth IRA. I do the Gemini thing, I'm trading through Gemini. Okay. I also have a crypto Roth IRA. It owns private companies, it's done private lending, it has an LLC. Okay, you can have that strategy too. That'll be two separate accounts if you want to do both those things.

SPEAKER_01:

And same would apply if you're doing a crypto HSA, or if you're wanting to open up a kid's uh crypto Roth, those are all separate accounts, all have the same type of fee schedule that we just outlined, and you're on Gemini's exchange as a trader to buy and sell at your leisure. Okay. I think that's good.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. Cool. Let's get to the next option here. So if people have asked, you know, Matt, I wanted, I don't want to be on Gemini forever. I want to go off exchange or I want to hold the crypto on a hardware wallet, you know. Um, how do I do that? Well, you're gonna use the old-fashioned structure. So at the beginning here, I showed you guys the picture of me back in 2017. And how I bought crypto back then was using an IRA LLC. And we've been doing this with thoughts of clients over the years. Um, but we kind of perfected this and made it simple. So some of you might already have an IRA LC, actually. You might be a self-directed IRA investor, doing real estate or other private assets, and you have an LLC with a checking account. And you're like, well, I want to open up a Gemini exchange account. Can I just buy crypto right out of my LLC? Can I just link my bank account with my LLC? Yes, you can. Now let me explain the IRLC here because some of you may not even know what the hell this is. So the first thing is is when you have a self-directed IRA at directed IRA, we're not talking about a crypto IRA, okay? Hang with me here. I know this might be confusing. Okay. Say you just did a self-directed IRA at directed IRA, which those self-directed IRAs are, you know, buy real estate, private notes, invest in an LLC, a private fund. Here, what you'll do is you'll say, rather than my IRA own real estate directly or do private lending out of the IRA to some borrower, I want my self-directed IRA to own an LLC 100%. And I will be the manager of the LLC. So this would be Matt Sorensen, the IRA, owns this LLC 100%. It's called an IRA LLC. Now you call the LLC whatever you want. XYZ Investments LLC. Now I'll designate the amount I want invested from the IRA into the LLC. Let's say it's 100K. That 100K is gonna go into the LLC's business checking account. Now we work with Titan Bank primarily. They do these IRLC business checking accounts, they streamline them, they know what they are. They aren't gonna ask you a thousand questions about how does your IRA own an LLC and make you complete all these documents and send you to the wrong people. Okay, we've got a streamline process to get the IRA LLC set up. Our law firm sets up the LLCs. So your IRA owns the LLC 100%. LLC has a checking account. You are manager of the LLC. Now you don't own the LLC personally, you're just manager of the LLC. Manager of an LLC is like president of the corporation. That means you have decision-making authority on behalf of the LLC. So one thing I can do is I can enter into contracts. I can sign checks. I can send wires from the LLC bank account. And so for a lot of our real estate clients, they use this IRA LC. I've used it. When I bought rental real estate with my retirement account, I've used the IRA LC structure. I'm the manager of the LLC. My account owns the LLC 100%. It put the money into the LLC business checking account. And that LLC business checking account, I've got to use for the investments. I'm not using it personally or taking a salary. I'm out investing it and growing that. Okay. And it's building up in the LLC. So when I showed you that video in 2017, I had an IRLC. I was buying rental properties and I had cash flow coming in on them. And I had my clients at the time asking me, can I buy Bitcoin, Matt, and my IR with my IRLC or with my self-directed IRA? And I was like, this is even before directed IRA existed, by the way. I was like, huh. I don't know. Let me try. So that's what I did. I used my IRLC, I linked it to an institutional exchange account, and I started trading it. Now back in 2017, that was a little easier. Nowadays, if you try to get an institutional account for an LLC, when you go to like anybody, this could be Gemini, Coinbase, Kraken, I don't care who it is, they treat you like you're a hedge fund with a billion dollars. Who's your board of directors? Who are your officers? What type of insurance do you carry? Do you have any investors or funds that are, you know, sovereign nations? Do you like it's like, oh my gosh, you're filling out this application, you're like, surely this is the wrong application. I have a hundred grand or 50 grand or 25 grand in an LLC that I just want to buy crypto with and link to an exchange to get on ramp tier. So what we've done is we have worked with Gemini to be able to establish institutional accounts for your IRA LLC. So now what we're gonna do is if you're like, Matt, I have this IRA LC structure, link me to a Gemini Exchange account. We will have your LLC as the owner of this Gemini Exchange account. You can then link the Gemini account to your LLC business checking account because you got to get money over there. But you're in control of the LLC business checking account. This is different from our crypto IRA because you're the manager of the LLC. So you will link your checking account, whatever bank you're using, to Gemini, and you'll send over the amount of money that will go to Gemini. Now that's in your Gemini Exchange account, funded from your IRLC business checking account. Now you're at Gemini. There's an exchange account open, an XYZ Investments LLC, or whatever your IRLC is called. In the end, owned by your IRA, so not taxable. We help you fill out your W9 correctly when you establish this. Now that LLC can go and you're gonna buy crypto on the exchange at Gemini. Now, because this is different from our crypto IRA and you're doing it through an LLC structure, if you want to go off exchange, you can. Alright. So now if I'm using this IRLC structure, which is a little more complicated and expensive to set up, but for those of you that are like Matt, I just want to set this up from the beginning. I want to go off exchange, I want to do crypto. Um I was not gonna do your crypto IRA because I had to stay on exchange. Okay, you could use this option for the sole purpose of using your retirement account to go off exchange. Okay, so now it's the same process. I gotta open the self. Let's say you're starting from scratch, okay? You've got to open a self-directed account. Let's and this is a self-directed IRA if you're going this route, by the way. You're not doing a crypto IRA if you're going this route. Open a self-directed IRA, step one. Step two, you need to still fund the account. Transfer, rollover from Vanguard or Schwab, whatever it is, okay? That gets funded in the account. Step three, you need to invest it. Now, here the investment is going into an IRA LC. We have an intake that you'll complete for an IRLC that says, you know, what's the name of the LLC? How much money are you investing from the IRA into the LLC, and what state do you want the LLC set up in? And then our law firm, KQS Lawyers, that's my law firm, I'm a lawyer too, but they're gonna set up that LLC for you. It's$1,200 for the IRLC. Now, that money comes in from Schwab or Vanguard, it's in your self-directed IRA. We're gonna invest it into the LLC, which will go in the LLC business checking account. Again, we typically use Titan Bank, and your LLC owns that. Your manager, you have signing authority on that LLC business checking account. Okay, now there's an additional step. I said there's three, there's really four here. Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

A bonus, a bonus four.

SPEAKER_00:

Because now we've got the money in the LLC business checking account, but you still need to link to Gemini. And this has been a pain point because we have lots of clients over the years that are like, Matt, I just want to get an institutional account for the LLC. Coinbase treats me like I'm a billionaire and like I've got some CFO and a whole accounting department and audits that I can send them to get this damn thing set up. And they're like, Yeah, sorry about that. And Gemini is giving me the same runaround and cracking and everybody else out there. Well, we know we've heard that, and some clients have gone through it and been able to figure it out and pulled the right levers or had the patience and took the six months to get it done. Um I'm just telling you now, we have now a relationship with Gemini because we've built a good business with them and a good relationship where we can establish these exchange accounts in the name of the LLC. And this is the new step four here. So now you're gonna link that Gemini Exchange account, which we will set up for you. You have to make the request to us. You will fund it from your LLC checking account into the exchange account at Gemini, and then you go buy whatever crypto you want. Now, you will have authority besides just as a trader to trade on that Gemini Exchange account in this structure to where you can take that crypto off exchange. All right, you can hold it on a tracer or a hardware wallet, whatever it may be. All right. Now we want to be careful. You better bring that same crypto back or have a record of whatever trades you might have done off exchange of how that's transpired. Because I'm not gonna let you take off one BTC and come back with 100 in your Roth IRA, right? That'll be a problem. I'd be like, how'd you do that? Okay. So um, so just know there's some there are some checks and balances there. Um but this is a new strategy that allows you to go off exchange. Now, some people might say, Well, Matt, has the IRS approved this? No. Has the IRS disapproved this? Nope. Okay, so if you're doing this structure and going off exchange, this is kind of a pioneering strategy. We're not aware of a rule that restricts this or that'd be prohibitive, but then there's nothing green lighting this either. So if you're like a cautious person on this crypto strategy and self-directing crypto in general, don't do this. Okay. Um this is not meant to be any legal advice or an opinion here. Um, I am a lawyer, but I'm not g giving this as legal advice here. I'm just saying like there's not clear guidance saying green light this, you're totally fine, don't worry about it. But there's also nothing to the contrary saying that you can't. So we've allowed clients to use a strategy if they want. Law firm KQS lawyers does set up the IRLC. Now, that was a mouthful, and I hope that made sense because this is an advanced strategy. If I lost you on this explanation, this probably isn't for you.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

You might this probably isn't for you. Okay. This is for the crypto enthusiast or the expert person. Maybe just start with the crypto IRA first. Or if you're like Matt, I'll just re-watch this. Or basically, when you set up the IRL C, by the way, you get a consult with one of the lawyers, you talk through it. There's a lot of questions. It's not rocket science, but it is some steps. Okay. And this is just the way this is with retirement accounts and some of the rules. We have to get through these steps in order to enable this strategy for you. But the punchline is you can buy crypto with a tax advantaged account, including a Roth IRA, and go off exchange.

SPEAKER_01:

Say that one more time.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. You can go off exchange and you can hold your crypto, you can hold the keys.

SPEAKER_01:

But what if I lose my keys?

SPEAKER_00:

That's your problem. Exactly. And and we will distribute that from your IRA. So that's another problem. I'm just telling you, there's a lot of compliance issues with this, right? If we if everybody came to us and said, Well, we just lost our keys, I don't know, man. What am I supposed to do? Sounds like you probably use that crypto for something else and you just didn't want to distribute it yet, because maybe you're not 59 and a half in your Roth I race and you knew you'd have an early withdrawal penalty. So just know there's gonna be some oversight on this on our end. We don't want any like anybody thinking this is a strategy where they can go out and do some, I don't want to say funny business. That's the weird, the wrong word, but anything improper. I was also gonna say inappropriate. That sounded like your junior high teacher. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01:

So let me hit a few things real quick. So there is no threshold for these institutional accounts. One thing that we didn't hit on, but we are set up to do it, is this would apply for solo K accounts as well.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

So if you have a solo 401k with us, or if you're wanting with a trustee checking account. Yes, and you're wanting to let's say it's somewhere else, you would have to restate and can move to us, and we can help facilitate all that uh for a fee, of course. But we can do that. But if you have an existing solo 401k already with us, you'd need you know a trustee checking account set up and we can help facilitate uh this process. Again, no no minimums, no high investment thresholds. Um, Steve, great example here. He's like, I have a uh IRA LC that I did with you guys, and it's literally taking me over six months, and I'm still not approved. And that's why we you know wanted to bring this to our clients to give you a product and solution that we could help facilitate. And it's taken us quite a while uh to get to this point, and you know, um, hopefully it'll be a smooth process for each of you. We've already tested it, it's worked, working, and we're excited to take this uh to each of you. Should we hit on the fees on how we have that structured? Yeah, quickly. I know all of you are dying to hear, you know, how we make our money, or how does Jim and I make it, or what are we doing? We we've streamlined it, made it very simple.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and let me kind of go over what's gonna be required in the process too, and that what we'll do. So, what you'll do is you're gonna get you're gonna need to create a password with Gemini. So we will establish the institutional account on your end. You're gonna need to create a password and follow Gemini's instructions there, and then, which is pretty simple. You know, we've all created users and passwords before. And then step two on your end is you will need to link your LLC checking account, which is just the bank routing and account number to Gemini. All right, and then that's gonna link it so you can authorize a certain amount to go from that LLC checking account into USD um with Gemini. Now, um, what we're gonna do at directed is we are gonna pre-fill the institutional account application. All right, we've already done a couple of these. This is again a new product launch. So um, so if you're everybody's rushing in on this, just hang tight. We'll get to you, we'll get this set up. It will not be six months. Okay. Um, this should be something that can be done within a week. Um, we're hoping to get that process down even faster than that. Um, but right now, um plan on about a week's processing time to get this done. So again, we will pre-fill the institutional account application. We know the things that Gemini is looking for. You're gonna need to review and approve that. We're gonna complete the required W9. We're gonna need some of your LLC documentation to do this. Obviously, we'll typically have this um on our files if we if that IRLC was processed through us, and it only works if it was, by the way. If you're using some other IRA custodian for your IRLC, you need to transfer your account over here ASAP, and then we'll help you on this. Um and then, but so we'll have your LLC documentation. We'll be providing that with Gemini. These are some of their requirements. And then we need a copy of a photo ID. Now, a lot of things when you get into this process, typically working with crypto providers or custodians or other regulated institutions, you need to give them exactly what they asked for. If they ask for a photo ID, don't scan an ID and send it to them. They do not accept scanned IDs. It must be a photo, literally photograph. You can do it off your phone. It must be an actual photo ID. So, um, but we will be um collecting those if we don't have those items. Otherwise, we a lot of times we already have those, and we'll be running um forward once you make the request to go establish this. Now, in order to initiate it, we have a request form, okay, that you will request that says, hey, I want to go do this. It authorizes these fees we're gonna talk about here in a second, goes over what we're gonna do and what you're gonna do. Um, you agree to some terms and conditions, and then it's also the instruction, hey guys, go start getting this going for me. All right, now we can get to fees. The wind-ups have been long today, guys. Sorry about that. Hopefully it's helpful though and instructional. All right, so there's a couple things to know. One is we have an onboarding fee of 100 bucks when you're doing this. It's our team's gonna have to do this. We got to prepare all this still for you. So it's a one-time onboarding fee of 100 bucks. The second thing is there's an annual fee for this of a hundred bucks that'll be on your account. Okay, as you hold an institutional account with Gemini, there's an annual fee that we'll be charging to your credit card on file over here of 100 bucks. Also, the trade fee is a half a percent, just like our crypto IRA fee. This is a half a percent or 50 basis points. And the trade fee is being taken out as you're trading on the Gemini platform. And that's inclusive of Gemini's fee and our fee as well. So um, so that's the fee on the institutional account setup for an IRLC or a trustee checking account in a solo 401k. Again, this allows you to get USD from your IRLC or solo K trustee checking account in the Gemini. You'll have a Gemini Exchange account. You can buy and sell any of the crypto that's on the exchange there, and you can go off exchange too to a hardware wallet. Um, and that's the uh the new fun option that we have available for you. So um our team can help with questions on this. Um, there might be some firing off in the chat here, and I'd love to answer any questions we can here as well. We're excited about this new option that we have for everybody. Um, if you're brand new to investing in crypto though, and just guys, I do the crypto IRA, the saying. So um I know some people some of you, Mikey's my crypto, you're like Matt, you're crazy. Um, I also do frankly do have this structure because I did it back in the day in 2017. I did this structure. Um, but now we finally got around to doing it and making it an option for all of our clients. But what I would say nine out of 10 people are just gonna do the crypto IRA um because 295, it's much easier to get set up your annual cost. The this last strategy here, you're gonna have the IRL C cost to set up if you don't have one already. So that's$1,200 is what we charge in my law firm. It includes a tax console with an attorney. Um, and that may be something you need, anyways, frankly. But I'm just saying it is a little more extra steps here, right? Because now you're doing a little more work. You got to link the checking account. Um, but there is greater flexibility here and has um other options in terms of going off exchange if that's something you want to do as you're storing and holding your crypto. All right. What questions we got we can hit in the chat?

SPEAKER_01:

So uh I guess let's just recap real quick the actual trading fees for this institutional account. Just quite simply, it's 50 basis points, half a point. So buying and selling, same as our crypto IRA product. So just this institutional account, like the it's the same trade fees. The only thing that we have different is the onboarding fee and the setting up of each uh member authorized user on there, and then we have a hundred dollar annual uh fee to add this on to your IRA LLC or solo K. That's where that's those are our fees. Yeah. So that's not a trade fee, that's an administrative fee uh to add that onto your IRA LLC or solo K is the$100 a year, and then it's 50 basis points or half a point every time you buy sell. That's it. And Jim and I is collecting that, charging that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep.

SPEAKER_01:

That's it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep. All right, awesome. Well, we got the let me just show this on the slide here so everybody can see some of that. A little promo code. And the fee breakdown. We also have a little promo code. You can use webinar100 to open up a new account here. That'd be for new accounts set up, crypto IRAs, or even a self-directed IRA if you're doing an IRLC. That's not for other fees to offset. That's just for the uh crypto IRA or self-directed IRA that you set up if you're doing the IRLC. Um, we have other resources over at that website, that url directed IRA.com slash cryptocurrency. Um, there's a chapter in my book on on crypto and self-directed IRAs. We do have other webinars and other resources on this topic if you want to dive further into this. And then we have an incredible team here too to help. They can help on the new accounts team, going over any questions you might have, getting the account established. Oh, I've got this old 401k here, this old 403B, or my spouse has this old IRA at a credit union or a TD Ameritrade and like whatever it is. I mean, we can help you through getting that account opened, getting it funded, and then getting it invested, whether you're just doing the crypto IRA and you're just gonna be trading right at Gemini, or you're doing this IRA LLC strategy we've talked about, where you can go off exchange as you're holding your crypto. So lots of options there. Uh, I want to thank everybody for being on today, of course. This will be recorded again. Um, if you registered for this, you'll get a notice on it. Otherwise, just get signed up for our newsletter. Get on the newsletter at directedira.com if you're not getting that. Um, because you get updates on other awesome webinars we're having, other educational resources, events, articles, videos we're putting out, and the recordings of the awesome webinars that you may have missed. So thank you everybody for being on. Aaron, any anything you need to say on the way out?

SPEAKER_01:

I'd be just yeah, just go over to directedra.com, uh, go schedule a new account call uh with one of our amazing IRA account executives. You can just pick the one of with the picture that you relate to the most. Picture name, they're all up there. So pick one, book a free call. They'll help you get started with a new account. Or if you already have an existing IRA LC or solo K and you want to get set up with uh a Gemini institutional account, they will help facilitate that as well, get you the paperwork uh involved for that, can go over the fee schedule again if you need more clarity on that, and any other clarifying uh questions that you need. And so again, just there's two different products that that we've you know created and uh are made available uh to our clients. You can have just a crypto IRA uh which is just sits on the Gemini Exchange. You have a trading account with them, you can buy and sell at any time, but you're staying on exchange. You can use any account type. You do not need an LLC, you do not need a solo K. You can use any account type we have, even a Kids Roth crypto account. Uh the new type of product we discussed today, you can have an IRA LC or existing solo K or create new a new one if you don't have one already. But it's totally up to you. You don't have to do that structure. But if that's what you want to do and you want to go on to Gemini's exchange and then move off so you can hold the private keys, you absolutely can do that. So we we have that process and product dialed in. Uh, we've done it in a way so it can be moved much faster and more streamlined than you just you know going through another exchange or even with Gemini, some of you still haven't, you know, been successful to do it. But we're we're able to fast track that. We have a you know that process dialed in.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And one other question that we had too was uh what if I have a multi-member IRA LLC? Um, so on the onboarding, that's an so let's say you have your IRA and your spouse's IRA that each own you know 50% of an IRA LC. So there's two IRAs that own the LLC. Well, that's more work for us. Um it's additional$50 per member for the setup. So that would be$150 total. Okay, 100 for the first,$50 for the second. And then there's an annual fee per account. Okay, I need to understand that is like these are much more complicated. So the annual fee is um a little bit different in setting up the multimember IRLC. Most of the IRLCs are single member, so most of you out there do you don't need to stress about this, but there is some difference on the pricing here if you have multiple members in an IRLC. All right. Well, thank you everybody for being on today. We appreciate you. We appreciate your business. Um, for any of you that may not be customers yet, we look forward to earning your business. And um, thanks to everybody for being on. We'll see you next time. Until then, stay calm. Self keep gone.