Retirement investment is a crucial decision for most people. Making a sound retirement investment plan, setting the right goals, and then making the right choice of investment platforms and investment portfolios is essential. You can invest money for retirement in many ways; however, they all vary concerning the safety and potential for growth.
This article covers two such retirement investment platforms, the iTrustCapital and Kingdom Trust (Choice IRA). You’ll learn what they are, what they offer, and how they compare with each other. This is followed by a verdict on the better retirement investment platform between the two.
Invest in over 30 cryptocurrencies from your checking account with no trading fees with the Current mobile app crypto feature.
Titan is an investment platform with a team of experts actively managing your portfolio based on your chosen strategy, including cryptocurrencies.
Alto IRA allows you to invest in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, ETFs, real estate, cryptocurrencies, and even gold for your retirement.
What is iTrustCapital?
iTrustCapital is a low-cost self-directed investment platform that supports Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) for investing in gold, silver, and cryptocurrency—being self-directed means that the account owner has complete control over the transactions and an on-demand dashboard view of their portfolio.
Account owners can trade in the available commodities 24/7/365 within their retirement account for only a 1% transaction fee. iTrustCapital becomes a digital wallet to buy, sell, and store digital assets safely. Although users are required to hold an IRA account to use this platform, they’re given the option to use tax-free or tax-deferred traditional, Roth, or SEP IRAs.
With many types of investments, platform users can either invest a portion of their IRA amount in cryptocurrency or all of it. The platform is available to all qualified US-based investors and gives users access to buy and sell 28 cryptocurrencies as well as physical gold and silver.
Bitcoin is a pioneer cryptocurrency that has gained enormous value since its launch in 2009. iTrustCapital is a reliable platform for safely buying, storing, and selling Bitcoin. As for its current usage, iTrustCapital boasts a transaction amount of $4.5 billion with a membership base in the tens of thousands of American investors. It also has a mobile app for easy, rapid trading and monitoring on the go.
What Does iTrustCapital Offer?
iTrustCapital is a simple-to-use platform, and its website provides complete details of the two stages before making investments.
- A simple 8-step process for completing an online IRA application
- The funding of the IRA
To fund the IRA, as per the 2021/22 guidelines, account holders over 50 years old can contribute up to $7,000 while others can contribute up to $6,000. These funds can be used to invest in one or more of the cryptocurrencies on offer with iTrustCapital. Depending on the type of IRA in use, individual investors can make tax-free investments where there’s no tax payable at the time of investments, earnings on investment, and withdrawal on retirement; or tax-deferred investments where tax is payable on withdrawal only.
About investing in precious metals, iTrustCapital offers fully backed physical gold and silver commodities instead of gold and silver securities, derivatives, or futures. This platform prides itself on being guaranteed by the Royal Canadian Mint and offers low trading costs of $50 per ounce over spot for gold and $2.5 for silver.
The platform has sale commissions and doesn’t deal in overpriced coins. These features make iTrustCapital an excellent choice for retirement investors.
Invest in over 30 cryptocurrencies from your checking account with no trading fees with the Current mobile app crypto feature.
Titan is an investment platform with a team of experts actively managing your portfolio based on your chosen strategy, including cryptocurrencies.
Alto IRA allows you to invest in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, ETFs, real estate, cryptocurrencies, and even gold for your retirement.
What is Kingdom Trust (Choice IRA)?
Kingdom Trust Company is an independent qualified asset custodian specializing in individual investors’ unique and innovative custody solutions. The company is regulated by the South Dakota Division of Banking. This self-directed IRA allows users to decide the composition of their retirement investment portfolio. Options include:
- Shares
- Government securities
- Alternative assets
- A combination of these investment types
Courtesy of the freedom that this IRA provider offers its users, it brands itself “Choice”, a single account for all investments. It has no hidden fees, no minimum investment amounts, and flexible membership options. As for its current user base, Kingdom Trust boasts of having 50,000 members. These users can trade through this platform either via Interactive Brokers or Kraken, a cryptocurrency exchange, using the same account.
Like iTrustCapital, the platform allows users to buy gold and other commodities. Compared to the $4.5 billion of iTrustCapital, the Kingdom Trust (Choice IRA) has $5 billion worth of assets under custody belonging to its 50,000 users. Reviews from Kingdom Trust’s members suggest that it’s a highly reputable and trusted asset custodian.
What Does Kingdom Trust Offer?
Kingdom Trust offers four types of IRAs: Traditional, SEP, SIMPLE, and Roth IRAs. This is different from iTrustCapital, which offers only three types. Another unique point about Kingdom Trust is that its Choice IRA also supports buying and holding land assets with the same tax-free or tax-deferred features as it offers for cryptocurrency and precious metals. This is an advantage because real estate has typically remained a stable investment for retirement purposes.
The Choice IRA allows investing in real estate, such as single-family homes, condominiums, vacation homes, foreclosures, bank-owned houses, etc. This makes it an extremely versatile investment platform that leads the innovative custody solutions market. Kingdom Trust also provides funding opportunities for alternative investments via marketplace lending (MPL). Through MPL, borrowers connect with lenders through a secure marketplace portal.
Choice IRA investors can lend money to potential borrowers through the portal as their alternate investment. This is a secure way for Choice IRA holders to invest in borrowers’ projects, varying from private loans, consumer debt, or study loans. Small business loans can also be funded through this portal and are generally less than $500,000.
iTrustCapital vs. Kingdom Trust (Choice IRA)
While iTrustCapital and Kingdom Trust have many similarities and differences, the ones that stand out are provided below.
Differences
- Kingdom Trust allows a wider variety of investments, such as in real estate than iTrustCapital.
- Kingdom Trust allows investment in more types of IRAs than iTrustCapital.
- iTrustCapital offers lower minimum investment amounts and cheaper transaction fees than Kingdom Trust.
Similarities
- Both platforms are designed specifically to support retirement investments.
- Both platforms support diversified investment in stocks, bonds, cryptocurrencies, or a combination of all of these.
- Both platforms provide secure investments to their members and have large membership bases with good reviews of their services, reputation, and trustworthiness.
Which One Is Best for You?
While both retirement investment platforms are similar, iTrustCapital enjoys a slight advantage over Kingdom Trust. This edge comes in the form of better mobile app support for investors and lower minimums and transaction charges. Considering the features of both platforms, an individual investment advisor would most likely recommend using iTrustCapital.
