'Focus on Retirement': Crypto Custodian Rolls Out Hybrid IRA Offering

Digital asset custodian Kingdom Trust is offering investors a single retirement account for traditional and digital assets. 

Called Choice, the Kentucky-based custodian is offering a self-service retirement platform where investors can buy, sell or hold stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and digital assets in one tax-advantaged account, said Kingdom Trust CEO Ryan Radloff. Currently, fewer than 1% of the 100,000 retirement accounts for which Kingdom Trust provides custody have any digital assets as part of their portfolios. 

“Basically it’s a self-directed IRA with a web interface and mobile app to go back and forth between legacy and digital assets,” Radloff said.

Kingdom Trust built connections to crypto exchange Kraken to access digital assets and legacy brokers for traditional assets.

The launch comes after Kingdom Trust acquired Choice Holdings, a digital asset retirement company built by Radloff in the first quarter of 2020. In that same quarter, Choice trialed a version of direct crypto trading on the platform and saw an average of $13,000 per trade. Radloff was previously the CEO of crypto asset manager CoinShares.

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“Most people have more investable discretionary dollars in retirement accounts than they do in brokerage accounts,” Radloff said. “Account balances are materially larger than at Kraken or a Coinbase, and the average purchase size is much larger than what you would see on an exchange.” 

With accounts being denominated in post-tax savings, clients can make larger trades without the tax burden, Radloff said. As a promotion, the company is offering the first 1,000 Choice members $62.50 of bitcoin upon opening an account.

“As someone calling out my fellow bitcoiners, we need to be focused on the U.S. retirement market,” Radloff said. “It’s important that we don’t just think about brokerage, but also savings and other parts of our financial lives.”