You Can Now Put Ethereum’s Ether In Your Retirement Fund

The California-based startup BitcoinIRA.com has launched a new Ethereum IRA investment product that allows individuals to invest in a self-directed IRA that holds Ethereum’s cryptocurrency ether as an investment in a retirement fund.

BitcoinIRA.com is the first and only financial services company that enable investors to gain investment exposure to bitcoin in their retirement funds. Investors can choose to hold bitcoin as an investment in a traditional IRAs, Roth IRAs, SEP IRAs or a 401(k), enabling ordinary investors to add bitcoin exposure to their retirement fund portfolio without having to go through the technicalities of safely and securely purchasing and storing cryptocurrency over the long-term.

Now, investors also have the ability to hold the second most popular cryptocurrency, Ethereum’s ether, in their retirement fund. BitcoinIRA.com’s Ethereum IRA is now available to investors in the US and can be set up online by rolling over or transferring existing retirement accounts into a self-directed Ethereum IRA.

Like its bitcoin equivalent, the Ethereum IRA can be in the form of a traditional IRA, a Roth IRA, a SEP IRA or a 401(k) to give the investor flexibility regarding how he or she wants the investment account set up and what taxation aspect he or she prefers. For a traditional IRA, for example, contributions are tax deductible, but withdrawal during retirement are taxed at the ordinary income tax level, while for a Roth IRA contributions are taxed, but payouts during retirement are tax-free.

Ethereum’s cryptocurrency ether has risen in market value substantially since its inception in 2015 as the Ethereum smart contract and decentralized applications platform has gained popularity among blockchain startups as well as financial institutions as it enables the development of real-world business applications. As Ethereum’s popularity and adoption grow, so does the value of its cryptocurrency. That is what investors in Ethereum’s ether are betting on and what forms the argument for an IRA based on the altcoin.

BitcoinIRA.com will use the TradeBlock ECX Index as the reference rate for the price of ether and Genesis Global Trading, Inc. will handle liquidity. The storage of investor’s digital funds will be handled in partnership with BitGo’s multi-signature wallet for businesses.

As investor demand for easy-to-use cryptocurrency investments increases, it will be interesting to see what uptake the Ethereum IRA will receive and whether it will help to push up the price of ether even further in the coming months.