All jokes aside. I wanted to buy cryptocurrency in my retirement account. Specifically, I had a ROTH IRA that I wanted to use. When I looked into it a few years ago, I googled and all that I found in the search were sites like bitcoinira.com, which are fine. However, all of these kind of sites hold your keys and charge significant fees (30% of the value of the IRA). I wasn’t willing to pay those high fees. I looked into it again about a year ago and discovered that I can buy any cryptocurrency I want. I can hold the private keys without paying a large percentage of my portfolio. How? A checkbook-controlled ROTH IRA. It’s also called a self-directed IRA. Most folks use them to buy real estate with their retirement accounts.
The next step was to figure out how to open up the checkbook IRA and transfer my ROTH IRA into the account. I researched and found several custodians. The fees to open the account varied from around $300 to $3K. The custodians at the higher end open the LLC and checking account, write the operating agreement and other services. I wanted to go to the lower end but I wasn’t quite sure how to set everything up. That’s when I stumbled upon a site run by someone named Depriest. I am calling myself DepreistLite. His site helped out a ton. I am no expert and neither is he, however his knowledge and experience far surpassed my own. After I discovered Depriest and opened the self-directed ROTH, his site was taken down. Currently, It’s only available through the WayBack Machine. Here is the link to it.
DISCLAIMER: If you are looking for professional advice contact an attorney, tax advisor or a CPA. I am not an expert, so keep in mind that this is not financial advice.