"Are you asking the right questions of your Bitcoin qualified custodian?"

— River

Welcome to the latest issue of the Bitcoin For Families newsletter. This issue talks about the right way to save with Bitcoin in your IRA.

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IRAs and Roth IRAs are a great way to save for retirement and several Bitcoin companies allow you to create IRAs that hold Bitcoin as opposed to the traditional stocks and ETFs.

But as we have learned with the recent developments, not all Bitcoin IRAs are born equal and it's time to look at what's the right way to save with Bitcoin in your IRA.

In the past, I've recommended two companies for your IRAs: Swan and River and I've used Swan myself to buy Bitcoin.

From now on, I am only recommending River.

In-House vs Outsource

Both Swan and River are Bitcoin only companies that encourage their customers to self-custody.

There is a market for Bitcoin held in custody and this includes IRAs, corporate treasuries, family offices and other entities that hold large amounts of Bitcoin and need a setup that is more advanced than my Coldcard tucked in a drawer.

Both Swan and River offer custody services for this market and the main difference between them is that River has built the custody infrastructure in-house while Swan outsources it to different partners.

River

River runs its own custody infrastructure and uses multisig cold storage so that you have direct visibility over your assets while preventing accidental or malicious transfers by a rogue employee (yours or theirs).

Simple and effective.

Swan

Swan outsources its custody infrastructure to two separate companies:

• Fortress (now Ripple): a crypto focused trust company (not Bitcoin only) that manages the legal and regulatory aspects of holding the Bitcoin from Swan customers
• BitGo: a crypto company (not Bitcoin only) that provides the cold storage

Swan users don't have a multisig option and therefore don't have direct visibility of their assets.

Swan has been on the defensive with the Bitcoin community for the last few months due to their partner choices.

First, they had to rush out of their previous trust partner, Prime Trust, before this partner collapsed. Prime Trust lost the keys to the wallets of some of their customers but Swan was able to move its assets from Prime Trust to a new partner, Fortress, just before Prime Trust collapsed.

Now Fortress is also under duress after being hacked and losing $15M USD from its customers. As a result, they've been bailed out and acquired by the shitcoin company Ripple.

Swan is understandably taking action and it recently announced plans to create a new trust company, in partnership with BitGo, that will be Bitcoin only and will provide the legal and regulatory support plus also be responsible for the actual cold storage.

This new trust company will be used by Swan and will also provide its services to other entities.

Maybe, once the new trust company is live, Swan will offer multisig cold storage for your IRA funds. Until then, I can only recommend River for your Bitcoin IRA.

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Notable notes

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Recommendations

Iefan

The Nostr community is blessed with builders who are quickly adding new services on top of Nostr and Iefan is one of them.

He just launched a calendar running on Nostr! Check it out here

You can follow him here.

BloggingBitcoin

A blog focused on Bitcoin, Nostr and freedom tech. Do I need to say more?

Check it out here.

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See you again next week! — Alejandro

This newsletter is for educational purposes. It does not represent financial advice. Do your own research before buying Bitcoin.