RECOMMENDATIONS: Where to Buy and Hold Bitcoin Based on Your Needs and Use Case

Here are all of my recommended products for Bitcoin all in one place. Let's start with River. River is the easiest platform for people who are new to Bitcoin as well as the easiest platform for small and medium businesses and the best platform uh for the third category, nonprofits. So, if you are new to Bitcoin or a smaller medium business or a nonprofit, River is by far the best option for you if you are. So, that's recommendation number one. It's there's a ton of reasons for that that I've gone into in other videos, but just start with River, stick with River. At some point, if you become a power user and you are buying or selling tens of thousands of dollars of Bitcoin or you want to spend your Bitcoin, the best place to do that is Coinbase. At some point in the future, River will also have a payment card, either a credit card or a debit card, but right now they do not. And the best option for making uh buying stuff with Bitcoin is Coinbase. Uh Coinbase is also better for power users because they have Coinbase Advanced. And I've done an entire video about how to use Coinbase Advanced, but Coinbase Advanced is the best way to get the lowest possible fees if you're buying Bitcoin. But again, it only becomes cheaper than River if you're buying, you know, tens of thousands of dollars of Bitcoin. Uh the simple interface on Coinbase is significantly more expensive on fees than River. So for new users and for people who are buying or selling less than $10,000 of Bitcoin starting out, River is just a lot better, a lot easier to use, significantly lower fees. It's just better all around. Again, once you're in the tens of thousands of dollars of Bitcoin buying or selling, you could actually benefit from even lower fees on Coinbase Advanced, but the user interface on Coinbase Advanced is significantly more complex. there's a lot more ways to screw it up. And on Coinbase, you're going to be constantly bombarded with offers for random stupid stuff that you do not need. And um you're going to be, you know, offered staking rewards, constantly encouraging to convert your Bitcoin to something other than Bitcoin. It's just it's not, you know, it's not something I recommend for people that are new. You just get just like with Robin Hood, you just get bombarded with offers to try to, you know, get you to take action that makes the platform money, not you money. So anyway, I don't recommend Coinbase for people just starting out. Although, if you already have Coinbase and you feel comfortable with it, great. Good for you. Stick with it. That's fine. But again, if you're new and you're choosing between the two, most people have a much better experience with River as compared to Coinbase. But again, if you're a power user buying and selling tens of thousands of dollars of Bitcoin, you are com and you are comfortable learning the advanced user interface of Coinbase Advanced, which you can toggle back and forth within the app. But the advanced user interface is much less intuitive. Although, if you work it just right, as I've explained in my Coinbase Advance video, you can get the lowest possible fees in the industry with Coinbase Advanced. But again, it's advanced. Um, but again, and for spending Bitcoin, um, you can also spend Bitcoin without actually having Bitcoin on the Coinbase platform using the Coinbase credit card. if you are going to use the Coinbase debit card, uh, which they've really sort of depprioritized. They don't really market the debit card at all. And the debit card only gives you 0.5% back in Bitcoin. But the credit card, if you set it to pay uh, autopay with a bank account rather than your Bitcoin balance, you don't actually even have to have any Bitcoin balance on Coinbase. You can just use the Coinbase credit card. It will accumulate rewards for you. at at least 2% of every transaction, you get Bitcoin rewards back in the form of Bitcoin on every purchase. And so that's great. And you can do that without a Bitcoin balance and set the credit card bill on Coinbase to pay from a bank account rather than your Bitcoin balance. Um, now if you have a, you know, if all of your assets are in Bitcoin like me, you can also set it to pay off from your Bitcoin balance. But again, if you're in the early stages of your Bitcoin journey, you do not want to be using your precious Bitcoin to pay a credit card bill. Um, if you're like me and you don't have any US dollars cuz all of those have been converted to Bitcoin. Well, then of course you're using Bitcoin to pay for everything because that's your only uh source of capital. Uh, but again, that is typically for people who are quite a few years into their Bitcoin journey. uh for the first 3 to 5 years of someone's Bitcoin journey, usually the total Bitcoin they own is less than 50% of their assets. And obviously it makes way more sense if you have US dollars to pay, whether it's a credit card bill or anything else. If you have US dollars, certainly use the US dollars and keep the Bitcoin. But again, the the farther you get into the journey, eventually you end up with almost all Bitcoin and no US dollars. And at that point, you're paying stuff with Bitcoin because you have to. Uh, but you're always paying stuff with Bitcoin that's massively appreciated. So, it makes sense. So, again, River is better for people starting out, plus businesses plus nonprofits. Coinbase becomes better over time for power users who are buying or selling tens of thousands of dollars of Bitcoin who can handle the advanced user interface. And the Coinbase credit card is good for anyone. If you want to get automatic 2% Bitcoin back rewards on every single purchase, uh, you just have to set it to pay the balance. um with a bank account rather than your Bitcoin balance. Otherwise, you will accidentally zero out your Bitcoin balance uh by accidentally paying a large credit card bill uh with your Bitcoin balance and poof, there it goes. So, you don't want to do that. Uh again, unless you have a, you know, unless Bitcoin is all you own, in which case then you can pay it with Bitcoin balances because that's a much better way to do it because you can live for free. If you're constantly living on massively appreciated Bitcoin, you can live for free and it works great. And I did an entire video on the pros of cons, the pros and cons of the Coinbase credit card versus the Coinbase debit card. You can go watch that. Okay, so those are the first two, River and Coinbase. Third is for saving your Bitcoin. I do not recommend having large amounts of Bitcoin, more than perhaps five or 10 thousand dollars of Bitcoin on River or Coinbase because any online platform that you can get to with a mobile app or a web browser, a hacker or a scammer can also get to that platform uh and can hack or potentially scam your Bitcoin, which is again much easier to do with online platforms because they're available to anyone anywhere in the world. So for long-term storage of Bitcoin, I recommend Bitkey. Bit key website bit ke.orld wo rld bit bitkey.orld. Bitkey is a physical device that pairs with your phone and it basically is this ingenious way of making sure hackers and scammers never get your Bitcoin. The government can never freeze or seize your Bitcoin. Yet your Bitcoin is always available to you with no restrictions, no limits, unlimited power at your fingertips. Bit key is genius. Uh but uh it's better generally to buy or sell Bitcoin from River or Coinbase and then move it over to BitKey because if you buy Bitcoin within BitKey, the fees tend to be quite high. Um not exorbitant and not way above what you'd pay on Coinbase or River, but definitely higher. Um, and of course, BitKey, you know, does not have all the cool features of something like River where you can do supercharged recurring buys and all of that. So, I recommend for Bitcoin that, you know, you're not going to need for at least 6 or 12 months, I recommend you store it on BitKey. Think of it as a savings account rather than a checking account or, you know, something like that. Um, and if you have a very large Bitcoin balance, you know, above $50,000 or $100,000 or something like that, not only do I recommend it be on BitKey, but I recommend that BitKey itself uh be stored in a safe deposit box at a bank. Uh, that way if someone holds you up at gunpoint in a gas station parking lot or something, uh, you physically are unable and touch it to the back of your phone in in order to transfer the Bitcoin. So, that works a lot better. uh keeps your Bitcoin out of the hands of hackers, scammers, the government, and gives you unlimited power with your Bitcoin. But again, it doesn't quite have you can't spend it uh with a, you know, credit or debit card from your BitKey device. Uh it has to be on a platform like Coinbase before you can spend it. So, Bitkey works better for long-term savings. And I recommend people get a Bitkey. They cost between $100 and $150. Uh, I recommend people get a bit key once their Bitcoin balance exceeds somewhere between $5,000 and $10,000. But again, if you're going to spend your Bitcoin and you have a large balance, you're going to have to keep some of the spendable Bitcoin on Coinbase to spend it. Um, or River will eventually be rolling out a bill pay feature on River. So, if you want to use the bill pay feature on River, uh, or direct deposit and all that on River, obviously, you can do that as well. All right, the last category is retirement accounts. Fidelity is by far the best place to keep Bitcoin in retirement accounts. Uh Fidelity has a dedicated Fidelity crypto IRA, uh which uh it's called an IRA, but it actually covers multiple categories, but the technical name is the Fidelity crypto IRA. And it will let you do a an IRA retirement account with Bitcoin. It will let you do a Roth IRA with Bitcoin. It will also let you take an old 401k plan from a former employer. You can't do this with your current 401k uh because your your current employer controls your current 401k. But if you have a 401k that is with an employer that is not your current employer, you can roll that 401k into what's called a rollover IRA. Essentially, anytime you take control of a 401k account, it becomes a rollover IRA. That's just what it calls. you it's it's called you can't control your own 401k if it's not with your current employer. Uh if you want to have sort of the full ability to self-direct it and invest it the way you want and all of that, it needs to become a rollover IRA. And in uh Fidelity, you can do that. It's very simple. They'll let you pull over assets from any 401k plan with another plan provider, pull those into a Fidelity crypto IRA, and then invest that in Bitcoin. It's a two-step process. first to move the the account over or the assets in the account over and then second to buy Bitcoin with those assets. But it's super simple and straightforward. Fidelity is by far the best way to do that. Uh you don't have to use a crypto IRA at Fidelity. You can use a standard uh Fidelity IRA or a Roth IRA or a a rollover uh IRA from an old 401k. You can do that on their standard platform, not just their crypto platform. But if you do it on their standard platform, then you need to invest in one of the Bitcoin ETFs, exchange traded funds. So if you have a standard retirement account rather than a crypto retirement account, you have to invest in a Bitcoin ETF uh which the two I recommend are Fidelity, FBTC, uh and BlackRock, IBIT, uh those are the tickers. So FTC, F is in Fidelity, BTC as in Bitcoin for the Fidelity Bitcoin ETF. and ibit. I as in iesshares which is what black rockck calls their ETF products iesshares. So I bitcoin the first three letters of the word bitcoin ibit ibit. Um so any any account that you can control uh can invest in bitcoin that way. Uh but it's just easier to do it on the with a fidelity crypto IRA because you can in buy or sell bitcoin 24/7 and there's no fees after the initial purchase. whereas the Bitcoin ETFs have a 1 quarter of 1% which is 0.25% fees annually for the ETFs. So it's better to just buy the Bitcoin in a crypto IRA and then just let it sit there for decades at no fees to you. Uh that works obviously better than paying one quarter of 1% every single year. Uh so um you can also if you have a traditional uh a traditional investment account you can buy the Bitcoin ETFs through a traditional investment account as well um which I did not include as a separate category on this video but you can uh definitely do that as well. So between those those are the four products I use. I will do a separate video on what's best for kids but if you are 18 years of age or older those are your best options. River. River, if you are just starting out or you're a nonprofit or you're a small or medium business, far and away, don't even think about it. River is by far you're going to get the best experience there based on my experience with working with hundreds of people, educating and onboarding them. They have a better experience with River than with any other platform. So, definitely start there. Once your Bitcoin holdings are in the tens of thousands of dollars or you need to buy or sell tens of thousands of dollars of Bitcoin or your Bitcoin holdings have gotten so large as a percentage of your total assets that you are ready to start living on Bitcoin rather than accumulating Bitcoin, which means typically that Bitcoin is more than 50% of your entire net worth. Um, then Coinbase, the Coinbase credit card or the Coinbase debit card is your best option. And again, that's just the best option for spending Bitcoin. At some point in the future, River will roll out a PO payment card as well, but at the time of this recording, they do not currently have one on October 24 of 2025. Uh, but hopefully it will be coming at some point in the future. Uh, and then Bit Key for long-term savings. Now, you do not need a Bit Key for retirement account savings. Um, because all you can do with a retirement account is buy or sell the Bitcoin. You can't actually transfer it off the platform. And there's no easy way to use BitKey for retirement accounts. So the downside of retirement accounts at Fidelity or anywhere else is you are trusting that platform. But I also think that retirement accounts are the least likely account type to be seized by the government or or confiscated or you know hacked or scammed or anything like that. Uh because again you can't actually transfer the Bitcoin. All you can do with retirement accounts is buy or sell uh the Bitcoin from that platform. That does not mean they're immune to scams. Certainly, somebody could hack your account, link it to a bank account, transfer the assets to, you know, sell the Bitcoin, and then, you know, transfer the assets off of Fidelity, for example. Uh, but that tends to be much less of a problem as compared to platforms that are actual cryptocurrency exchanges like like River or Coinbase, etc. Um, so again, Bit Key, great for long-term storage if you have at least 5 to $10,000 of Bitcoin and uh great for any Bitcoin that you're not planning to use for at least 6 or 12 months. Uh, and then again, if you have a lot of Bitcoin, more than 50 or $100,000 of Bitcoin, I would take the extra step of storing that Bit Key device in a safe deposit box at a bank as opposed to just keeping it at your house or something like that. Now, if you have a super secure house with a gun safe and all that sort of stuff, uh, sure. But, um, you know, most people it's just safer at a, you know, safe deposit box at a bank, and that typically only costs about $30 per year, not month, but per year. So, it just makes a lot of sense to keep that BitKey device at a safe deposit box at a bank. And in the BitKey interface, you can set up a daily spend limit that you can do without the BitKey device. So, if you're worried about what if I need some Bitcoin and you know it's the weekend and the Bit Key device is locked in a safe deposit box at a bank, well, you can set up your daily spend limit. So, for example, if you have $25,000 of Bitcoin, you could set up a daily spend limit of $1,000. That means at any given time you can get $1,000 without having to touch the BitKey device. Um, and then if but and which also means if you wanted to transfer, let's say you say you had to leave the country for some reason, um, and you needed to transfer all of your Bitcoin somewhere else and you couldn't get to your BitKey device, there are recovery options to do that regardless, uh, that take a little bit of extra time. But an easy way of doing that if you have $25,000 of Bitcoin um and your daily spend limit is uh $1,000 is to just transfer it $1,000 a day for 25 days and just call it done. Um the spend limit does not include the transaction fee. So, if you have a spend limit of $1,000, you will probably need to transfer it $998 at a time or $999 at a time because if you try to transfer the full daily transaction limit, it's going to error out saying you're above your limit because the transaction fee on the Bitcoin network, which can range from anywhere from 25 cents to $1.50 or something like that. Um, if that pushes you over the limit, it will error out. Uh, so anyway, Bit Key for long-term savings. Once you have five or $10,000 or more and for long-term savings that you know you're not going to need for at least six or 12 months is typically what I recommend. Uh for retirement accounts, Fidelity, ideally a Fidelity crypto IRA, but if you want more flexibility to invest in things other than Bitcoin, you can just get a traditional Fidelity IRA or a Roth IRA or a rollover IRA from an old 401k and invest in one of the Bitcoin exchange traded funds ETFs. and that is a great option as well. So those are the products I use. You know, if somebody said, "What are the four most important products to live on Bitcoin and do everything with Bitcoin?" I would say those those are the ones I use literally every day or at least every week. I am using uh River. I'm uh River to buy Bitcoin, Coinbase to spend Bitcoin, Bitkey to save and store Bitcoin, and Fidelity for my Bitcoin retirement accounts. Those four companies/proucts are the way I live 100% on Bitcoin. And in the future, I think it'll get better where you can only need three products. Um, for example, if River had a payment card, then I would only use River, uh, Bit Key and, uh, Fidelity. But in this case, uh, River does not yet have a payment card. So to buy stuff with Bitcoin, I still need to use Coinbase for that because River does not yet have a payment card. But at some point in the future, they will. So, that's everything I recommend. I live on Bitcoin using those four products slashservices slashco companies. They work great. They meet all of my needs. And uh the only sort of missing piece from that equation is Bitcoin for kids that are under the age of 18. And I will do a separate dedicated video for what to do if your kids under the age of 18.