BITCOIN FOR KIDS: River, Cash App, and Bitkey

Bitcoin for kids. Here is all of the pros and cons of all the different approaches. Let's start with the youngest kids. If your kid is under the age of 13 and does not have their own smartphone, the only good option is River. Uh but they can't have their own account until they're 18. So, River allows parents if you email their or message their technical support team, they will create a sub account for your kid on River. In fact, you can create a sub account on River for each of your kids. Within each of those sub accounts, you can buy or sell Bitcoin and you can move Bitcoin between sub accounts. Now, the downside of that, of course, is your kid has to ask you every time they want to know what their Bitcoin balance is. But it's super simple. You open the River app, you hit the little drop down button, and it shows you your account and your account balance and each of your kids and each of their balances. Now, moving Bitcoin between the accounts is a little complicated because you have to generate a Bitcoin lightning invoice in their account and then go pay it in yours. Now, if you're paying your kid in Bitcoin, it's easy. Um because River's linked to a bank account. So, for example, if you're paying your kid $20 of Bitcoin, you just go in there, you hit buy Bitcoin in your child's account, $20, it pulls out of your bank account, and the kid has $20 in their River account. But if you're taking uh uh Bitcoin out of their River account, again, you've got to generate a a Bitcoin Lightning invoice to your account and then go pay that Bitcoin Lightning invoice from their account, which is a little bit clunky, but I haven't found a better way of doing it. Um theoretically, you could also just liquidate the Bitcoin in their account. So, if they need to buy something for 20 bucks and they say, "Hey, mom or dad, you know, I want to spend $20 of my Bitcoin." you can go sell $20 of their Bitcoin in their account and I guess you could move it back to your bank account. Uh but again, I don't ever like to liquidate Bitcoin. So, if one of my kids is buying something uh from, you know, that I have to put up the money for, I buy it using my Bitcoin with the uh Coinbase debit card or the Coinbase credit card. I'll buy it and then I'll just move that much Bitcoin from their River account over to my River account using uh a Lightning invoice for my account and then pay it in their account. Again, it's not super elegant, but it's the best there is. Um, okay. Once a kid turns 13 and has their own smartphone, they can use Cash App. Cash App, uh, allows them to buy or sell Bitcoin themselves and check their own Bitcoin balance, which is obviously a big upgrade from having a parent have to do it for them. Uh, so that's great. It it teaches them financial independence. They own their own Bitcoin, all that sort of stuff. the downsides of Cash App because each of these has downsides because the ecosystem for serving kids in the Bitcoin world is not as well-developed uh as adults primarily because kids have like very little money so fewer companies are focused on it and because the regulatory environment for miners with financial institutions is way different than adults. It's just much harder. So the combination of those two means the ecosystem for kids is not nearly as well developed. If your kid has a smartphone and is at least 13 years old, they can use Cash App. The two downsides of Cash App for miners, these do not apply for 18 and older, but they do apply for minor is uh one, you cannot move the Bitcoin off of the Cash App platform until you're 18. Meaning, you can buy and sell Bitcoin, but you can't actually send the Bitcoin anywhere, including to Bitkey. So once a kid, and I'll talk about this in a minute, has a large enough balance that they need a bit key device for themselves, uh it's a bit clunky to move that Bitcoin from Cash App over. Effectively, what you have to do is send your parent, you know, again, it's super clunky, but you have to liquidate the Bitcoin on Cash App, send the US dollars to your parent, and then have your parent buyin with those US dollars and send them to Bitkey on behalf of the child, which again is just clunky. It's just clunky. But coin uh cash app does not allow you to buy or sell sorry it does allow you to buy or sell bitcoin but it does not allow you to send or receive bitcoin as a minor. So again but it's it's not a hard workaround it's just clunky. Um the other downside is cash app. The fees are quite high regardless of your age. Even me, um, if I buy or sell Bitcoin on Cash App, which I almost never do because the fees are so high, the fees can get as high as 4%. As compared to 1% on River and, you know, two two or 3% on Coinbase Standard or, you know, 1.2% or less on Coinbase Advanced. Um, so it's again, it's just I hate paying 4% fees, but again, as a kid, you don't have an option because there's not good options. And uh I just reimburse my kids for Bitcoin purchasing expenses. So if they buy Bitcoin, I tell them and you know if they complain about the fees, I'm like look, buy or sell whatever Bitcoin you need to do to live your life. I will reimburse you for the fees you're paying on Cash App, which or not that much, but as a percentage, obviously anywhere from two 2% 3% 4% is a large percentage of their balance, and it, you know, that's pretty annoying. Um anyway, so those are the two downsides of Cash App is uh you can't transfer Bitcoin uh off of their platform as a minor and uh the fees are quite high. Also, there's a $400 monthly limit for buying Bitcoin. So obviously that's a you know significant downside as well. Um one second here. So uh as my kids get older and get jobs, they've had the problem of uh you know they they hit that $400 a month limit. If your kid has a has a part-time job and is making more than $400 per month, they're going to start bumping up against that that cash app limit of you can only buy $400 of Bitcoin per month. Now, you can buy an additional $400 of one of the Bitcoin ETFs, exchange traded funds. So, technically, you can get $800 per month of exposure on Cash App, but again, that's clunky and it'd be nice if they just didn't have so restrictive limits. But for for a lot of kids, until they have a a pretty regular, you know, semi, you know, a part-time job or even a little bit more than part-time, uh they're probably not bumping up against that $400 per month limit of how much Bitcoin they can buy. Um, all right. So, that is Cash App. Now, regardless, uh, as soon as your kid has a phone, regardless of their age, they can use Bit Key. Now the challenge with Bitkey again is because they are a minor they cannot buy and sell Bitcoin on uh Cash App because they will not allow sorry you cannot move Bitcoin on and off of Cash App. You can buy and sell but you cannot move it on and off which means you cannot send Bitcoin from Cash App to Bitkey because you're a minor and again they won't let you do that. But again, you can send the US dollars, you can liquidate the Bitcoin, send it to your parent, your parent buys Bitcoin on River and sends it over or Coinbase and sends it over to a child's BitKey device. Uh that does work. Um again, or you know, the kid can get a paycheck. This happens sometimes with my own kids. They'll get a paycheck and, you know, they'll sign it over to me or deposit it in my bank account and I will send them Bitcoin uh of equal amounts. And then of course I immediately buy Bitcoin with that money as soon as it hits my bank account. Um, so there's workarounds. Now, one workaround for all of this is Robin Hood, which I don't like Robin Hood because they just like blast you with constant advertisements and, you know, it's confusing and they try to constantly market you stuff that is not the real Bitcoin and all that sort of stuff. It's super annoying. But Robin Hood does have pretty low fees as far as buying and selling Bitcoin and it does integrate with BitKey, but you can't use it as a minor. So, one workaround, again, I'm not saying I recommend this. I'm just saying it's possible. Use your best judgment. It is possible. Not financial advice, not tax advice, not accounting advice, not legal advice, not investment advice, not financial advice, not any kind of advice, but theoretically, it would be possible for a kid to use your Robin Hood account. In that scenario, it eliminates all of the constraints because Robin Hood, if it's logged in as you, uh, is is not restricted. So the fees are nice and low. Um you can directly integrate it with a BitKey device, including a kids BitKey device and buying and selling are not restricted and all that sort of stuff. But the downside of that, of course, is if you have one Robin Hood account for you, that only works for a kid to use it if you're not using it yourself. Otherwise, everything gets all gum, you know, gummed up together. So that only works if you have a Robin Hood account that you're not using with a zero balance in it. And uh and again, I don't know what the laws are around that. I am not recommending it. Uh and I don't and I'm, you know, sure it's against the terms of service of Robin Hood or something like that. I don't know. Um but so I'm not saying I recommend that. I'm just saying it is possible for a kid to use an adult uh app or service uh that does not have the same restrictions as Cass Cash App and will let you move Bitcoin back and forth to Bit Key. Uh it is possible. It is technologically possible even if it's not legally possible. And certainly I don't recommend ever doing anything that is against the terms of service of any product or service or app. Um but anyway, so recap here. If your kid's 13 or or under the age of 13 and doesn't have a phone, just reach out to the support team at River. They will create sub accounts for your kids. Uh once they're 13 and have their own phone, they can buy and sell Bitcoin on Cash App, but cannot transfer it off the platform. And um and if they have enough more than5 or $10,000 of Bitcoin, you can set them up their own Bit Key. But again, unless they're using your Robin Hood account or something like that uh to get Bitcoin on or off of Bit Key, they're going to need a parents help because you cannot directly integrate uh to Cash App because a minor account, you cannot connect BitKey to a minor's account. Uh but you can to an adult account. So for my kids, those three tools um or four if you want to talk about Robin Hood, which again I don't recommend, but uh those tools will enable you to to do everything you need to do in the world of Bitcoin uh for kids between uh River when they're small, uh Cash App or uh or other services when they're um once they're 13 to uh to 17. And then if they have larger balances with a parents help, they can get their own Bitkey set up and uh and have their own Bitcoin balance on BitKey and do all the amazingness of Bit Key because Bit Key has no age restrictions and no limits. Bit Key is truly freedom money in its purest form and it's wonderful and it's glorious. It just you got to jump through a few hoops to get the Bitcoin on Bit Key. uh if you're uh under the age of 18, meaning a parent has to send the Bitcoin there because uh you can't send it from Cash App. Uh a minor's account will not ascend Bitcoin uh from that. So anyway, uh those those are things I recommend. River and then Cash App, unless you want to let one of your kids use your Robin Hood account or something like that. Um and then uh Bit Key. But whatever you do, follow the terms of service. Make sure everything you're doing is legal, ethical, and moral. Those are my three guiding principles for everything I do in life. Make sure everything I do is legal, ethical, and moral. And uh enjoy the journey with your kids with Bitcoin and everything else.