Prime Trust Crypto IRA Set to Exit Beta as Bitcoin Volatility at Historic Low

When Prime Trust launched its beta test of a crypto IRA product, the financial infrastructure firm said it was just following the money. The trend has not changed, so the company has gone ahead with its official launch.

“Half of America’s wealth is in pension funds,” said Sara Xi, chief product officer at Prime Trust. “Even if we have 1% penetration, we’re talking about $500 to $600 billion.”

Prime Trust announced in March the launch of its beta program for the Prime Trust Crypto IRA, a first-of-its-kind retirement account with a single application programming interface (API). On Monday, the company said it was ready to offer the product to the public.

The IRA offering includes traditional and Roth IRAs with options for exposure to bitcoin, ether, solana, litecoin, cardano and avalanche tokens. Market volatility has not deterred investors, Xi said, even for smaller tokens compared to bitcoin and ether, which are more commonly seen in traditional portfolios.

“I think people need access to a diversified portfolio just when the market is not good,” Xi said. “Everyone is looking for all the different ways to diversify, and crypto can be volatile in the short term, but if you’re investing in the longer term, it’s a pretty attractive diversification tool.”

Security has been a major concern for clients, Xi said, and the product will offer a warm and hot storage architecture supported by multiparty computing technology.

The Prime Trust Crypto IRA is supported by the company’s institutional financial API technology, Xi said, which includes compliance, custody, payment rails, crypto trading and settlement resources. The idea is to make it as easy as possible for business-to-consumer customers to offer the services, she added.

Prime Trust’s IRA product comes less than a year after ForUsAll, a retirement investment platform for small businesses, partnered with Coinbase to launch Alt 401(k), an investment vehicle that allows employers to offer crypto exposure through 401(k) accounts.

The news also comes as bitcoin finds itself in an unusual position: It is currently less volatile than major stocks. For the first time since 2020, bitcoin’s volatility has fallen below both the Nasdaq and S&P 500 stock indexes, according to data from Kaiko, so investors suffering from the market downturn can find respite in crypto.

Get today’s best crypto news and insights delivered to your inbox every night. Subscribe to Blockworks’ free newsletter now.