Introducing Our New 1% Crypto Trading Fee On All CryptoIRA Trades

We’ve been working on this for some time, and now we’re thrilled to finally make the big announcement… As of Tuesday, February 1, our crypto trading fee is now just 1%-down from 1.5%. Plus, if you already had an Alto CryptoIRA^® account, any investments made after 12 am, CT, on Friday, January 28, already reflected the new, lower trading fee. This is BIG.

So why’d we do it?

The short answer is: You asked, and we delivered. For example, one TrustPilot reviewer, who gushed over our coin selection and customer service, wrote:

Our users have spoken, and we listened. Introducing our new 1% crypto trading fee.

The longer answer, however, is that Alto’s entire mission is to make true portfolio diversification something every investor can achieve. Not just the ultra-wealthy, who for years have counted investments in alternative assets as an essential component of their portfolios.

It’s why we launched the Alternative IRA^® in 2018, which makes it easy to invest in startups, real estate, securitized artworks and collectibles, farmland, and more using tax-advantaged funds. And it’s why we subsequently created the Alto CryptoIRA-and followed up by eliminating monthly account fees and now reducing our crypto trading fees.

Why Put Crypto in an IRA?

The past 14 years have witnessed crypto’s rapid ascent from the creation of Bitcoin in 2008 to an asset class so ubiquitous that investors of all ages increasingly consider it an essential component of a diversified portfolio.

From “Wild West” to Household Name

Over the course of a little more than a decade, crypto has grown from just Bitcoin to a small handful of altcoins to thousands of digital assets today (many of which remain relatively unknown and only available via decentralized exchanges). Along the way, fortunes were made, particularly for those who bought BTC early and held on for dear life (HODLed)-since its 2009 debut, the value of Bitcoin has risen by around 8 billion percent.

What’s more, crypto has seen its greatest growth over the past two years, with many experts saying this nascent technology is still in its infancy, often equating it to the early days of the internet. Considering nearly 70% of U.S. crypto holders started investing in the asset in 2021, it’s easy to see why so many are rushing to get in while it’s still relatively early.

During crypto’s first few years, governments, institutions, and the public at large didn’t know what to make of it. Buying and selling it required a degree of technical savvy. The financial press routinely dismissed it. And no one knew what it would mean for taxes.

Things changed in 2014, when the IRS declared virtual currencies and other assets property, and thus subject to capital gains taxes. Though the move to issue tax guidance was a major milestone in establishing the legitimacy of cryptocurrency, it also set in motion a complicated tax-reporting process that even today is unfamiliar to many tax advisors.

How to Avoid Paying Taxes on Crypto with an IRA

Investing in crypto in an IRA lets you sidestep the cumbersome process of reporting each and every transaction on your taxes-and potentially avoid paying taxes on crypto altogether.

How’s that? Selling crypto is considered a taxable event. Buying it is not; however, the price you paid for it matters greatly. To understand how this works, imagine you bought one ETH. If you later sold it all at once, determining the taxable gain is easy. You simply subtract the total sale price from the amount you paid. Easy.

But let’s say you bought your 1 ETH over 20 smaller purchases, each at a different price (what is called the “tax basis”). Now things are going to be a lot more complicated-especially if you haven’t been keeping meticulous records-since you’ll need to determine and report the cost basis for all 20 purchases.

When you sell crypto within an IRA, on the other hand, gains aren’t taxed. Instead, you either pay taxes on the money you contribute (with a Roth IRA) or pay taxes on the distributions you take later on (with a traditional or SEP IRA). So no matter how much you bought and sold a coin or token for, you won’t be required to report your gains relative to your purchase prices.

The Best Way to Buy and Sell Crypto

Alto CryptoIRA lets you invest in more than 135 coins and tokens through its integration with Coinbase for all the tax advantages of an IRA-whether you choose a traditional or Roth crypto IRA. (We even offer CryptoIRA as a SEP IRA.)

And unlike a lot of the other cryptocurrency IRAs that have come along since, we knew our crypto IRA needed to be accessible to everyday people. (Because making alternative investments something everyone can take advantage of is central to Alto’s mission.)

So we set one of the lowest investment minimums in the industry. With CryptoIRA, you only need $10 to make an investment, in comparison to other crypto IRAs, which require as much as $2,500 just to make a single investment.

We keep looking for ways to make it even better, too. It’s why we eliminated monthly account fees last October and now cut our crypto trading fee to just 1%. It’s also why we’re hard at work building a game-changing app and working to integrate other commonly requested features.

Invest in 135+ Coins and Tokens with Alto CryptoIRA

CryptoIRA is the easy, tax-advantaged way to invest in crypto, offering:

• Up to 200+ coins and tokens
• $10 investment minimums
• No account minimums
• 1% crypto trading fees
• 24/7 real-time trading
• Secure, Coinbase integration
• No monthly or account setup fees

Ready to start investing in crypto tax-free or tax-deferred? Open an account for free today!