Instructions for applying to work with Kraken with a Checkbook IRA/Solo 401(k)

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It is crucially important that you sign up with Kraken as a business account, as described below. If you currently have a personal account with Kraken, you must use a different email address to establish a new business account for your Rocket Dollar IRA to use at Kraken. Personal accounts titled in your name cannot hold retirement assets, and retirement accounts cannot hold personal crypto assets.

For Checkbook IRA clients, all clients who purchased an account before Jan 1, 2024 have a Checkbook IRA with an LLC. Clients who purchased after Jan 1, 2024 likely have a Checkbook IRA with a Trust. Please carefully review the suggested responses. Solo 401(k) clients most resemble a Trust when applying to entity service platforms like Kraken’s institutional channel.

You will likely need to reference your Rocket Dollar account’s user documents, for information on your Trust or LLC. You can find those documents by logging in to your dashboard. Then click on profile>doucments>user documents.

How do I contact Kraken?

Support@kraken.org

Kraken Details Page

Before starting my Kraken Checkbook IRA or Solo 401(k) application, what should I do?

  1. Create a Rocket Dollar account, either an IRA Trust (Traditional or Roth) or a Solo 401(k) Trust retirement account. Some older customers already have an IRA LLC with checkbook control and a Colorado LLC and can apply. Please note that the Rocket Dollar Direct Custody IRA cannot be supported at the Kraken Exchange. For the quickest ability to invest in cryptocurrency with your new Rocket Dollar IRA Trust (Traditional or Roth) or a Solo 401(k) Trust retirement account, start steps 2 & 3 below at the same time.
  2. Gather your Rocket Dollar Checkbook IRA or Solo 401(k) Trust information from your client dashboard. When Rocket Dollar notifies you that your account is ready for a retirement transfer, you should proceed to the instructions in our Knowledge Base article for the next steps. Additionally, be sure to keep in touch with the Rocket Dollar team as you still need to follow directions from our support team to 1. Complete your retirement rollover or contribution to fund your account, AND 2. Create your bank account with our preferred bank account.
  3. Apply using the instructions below at Kraken's dedicated Rocket Dollar application page.

Online Signup

  1. https://www.kraken.com/lp/rocketdollar Complete the form and click send so that your account will be tagged as a Rocket Dollar customer. Since Rocket Dollar customer applications look different than the typical business applications, this helps the Kraken team know to look out for your account.
  2. https://www.kraken.com/sign-up?type=business. Immediately start your application here. Be sure that you sign up as a business account. Personal accounts will not connect to your IRA Trust, IRA LLC, or Solo 401(k) ownership and can cause significant tax issues.
    • Type of Business Investment Fund
    • Number of employees 1-10
    • Monthly Trading Volumes (non-binding, but assists the Kraken team in service)
    • Assets under management (non-binding on how much you plan to invest)
    • Describe your business (pick "I am an IRA LLC holder at Rocket Dollar"/ "I am a Solo 401(k) holder at Rocket Dollar")
    • Service in Washington and New York is unavailable. This is a result of regulations and Kraken decisions out of Rocket Dollar’s control. Gemini, CBOE Digital, and River Financial are available in other states for Rocket Dollar customers.
  3. Then, fill out your new account details, and click on the Create Account button.
  4. Once the activation email is received and the account is confirmed, please log in and secure your account by adding at least one form of Sign-In Two-Factor Authentication (2FA).
  5. If you do not hear from a Kraken representative promptly, you can progress to Kraken's business signup page. Make sure to select BUSINESS while creating a login.

Get Verified

  1. Navigate to the upper right corner of the page and then select Get Verified.
  2. Select Verify under Pro (Account features and limits) to access the application form.
  3. You can save your application if you would like to return to it later. To access it later, simply go back to the Get Verified section by first navigating to your name in the upper-right corner of the page.

Filling out your IRA LLC/Trust information

Business Information:

  1. Entity Name: Fill in your Trust name exactly as it appears on your Trust creation documents in your Rocket Dollar dashboard. For a Trust, the default for Jane Smith would be JSMITH RD TR, but many investors will request a custom name. For older customers with an LLC, most customers have the JDoe RD LLC format. All Solo 401(k) customers have a unique game. (Leave the Alternate Name field blank).
  2. Registered Address/Operating Address: Your home Address, or address used at your Rocket Dollar signup.
  3. Select Yes if the Registered Address is the address that the Trust will be operating. If not, you will be asked to input the Operating Address separately.
  4. Business Website: N/A
  5. Industry: Individual Retirement Account.
  6. Goods or Services: - Non-Operating Entity. Sole purpose is to fund and trade crypto with my IRA Trust/IRA LLC/Solo 401(k).
  7. Financial Institution Question: - Answer “No,” as this is an IRA account.

Go to Rocket Dollar and then sign in to the dashboard and the Profile & DOCUMENTS section for your account-specific information, such as your EIN.

Business Registration Information

  1. Registration Type - Trust or LLC, depending on the type of account you have. You can check your documents in the profile section user documents if you are unsure. Solo 401(k)s are always notated as a trust during onboarding if there isn’t a unique Solo 401(k) option.
  2. EIN from your EIN letter (located in your RD dashboard)
    • You will use the IRA Trust EIN if filing for a Checkbook IRA w/Trust.
    • You will use the IRA LLC EIN if filing for an IRA w/ LLC.
    • You will use the EIN of the Solo 401(k) trust if filing for a Solo 401(k).
  3. Date of Formation, Country, and State of Formation—This should be in the Trust Agreement or LLC operating agreement in your documents section.
  4. Attach Trust deed or formation document LLC operating agreement/ to Corp formation.
  5. Upload Share Registry: Please upload the page of the Trust agreement that shows the trustees or Operating agreement page that shows the members of the LLC. Older customers with an IRA LLC instead of an IRA Trust have a single-member LLC, where the only owner is the IRA, and the manager is the account holder (you).
  6. Upload Business Operating Address: Please go to the banks website and provide a bank statement. If you are doing this application before your bank account is ready, you can provide a utility bill from your personal residence and supply a bank statement to Kraken at a later date. The address is for Know Your Customer compliance, which all financial institutions must follow for the Patriot Attack, not IRA or IRS compliance requirements.

Financial Information:

  1. Net Worth of Business (USD Equivalent): Select the rough value of the IRA from the drop-down provided.
  2. Source of Funds for Account: This question is typically required by all US banks as a requirement of their anti-money laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) regulations. Please be descriptive with at least one to two sentences and do not be vague with any answers you provide. Describe your job industry, your job titles, and a high-level description of the source of funds that will be or already are pulled into your Rocket Dollar IRA or Solo 401(k).  This question by far prompts the most FAQs and causes many applicants to freeze their application. Do not overthink it, and focus on getting an appropriate answer instead of stopping or waiting for help. If you are not willing to answer this question or provide vague details, it will delay your application approval. Kraken and many other Rocket Dollar partner companies must follow guidelines set by the Patriot Act, and regulatory agencies like the OCC & FINCEN. A few typical examples of appropriate answers may be:
    1. “Former employer 401(k) funds from Tech industry jobs at Startup Hero and Amazon. My job title was database administrator at Startup Hero, and Database sales at Amazon.”
    2. “Brokerage firm traditional IRA; rolled over from auto-industry employment retirement plan into the past. I was an on-site safety manager at Ford and Telsa.”
    3. “Self-employed 1099 income from real estate broker work and consulting gathered into my Rocket Dollar Solo 401(k). I was a real estate broker with HomeServices of USA and XYZ Realty.”
    4. “Military Vetern Savings in government-sponsored retirement TSP plan rolled over to Rocket Dollar IRA. I was a sergeant in the Marine Corps."

Account Activity:

  1. Reason/Purpose of opening the Account: Please choose “to Invest my Company Funds in Cryptocurrency”
  2. Arbitrage Trading: Answer truthfully if you intend to take advantage of arbitrage trading
  3. Margin Trading: NO - By regulation, margin trading is not allowed in all IRAs.
  4. Trading and Funding Activity Estimate: Please select the options that best apply to you. It is not necessary to always stay within these bounds in the future, but if your account activity has extreme differences from your answers, you could be subject to additional KYC and money laundering compliance checks.
  5. What country is your bank account located in: United States of America.

Authorized Accessor(s) & Ownership Details

1. Person Opening the Account Info:

  1. Enter the name as it appears on the ID you’ve provided and your Date of Birth.
  2. Enter your residential address.
  3. Ownership %: You, as the trustee, are the only owner of your IRA, and the IRA is the only investor in the Trust. Member-managed LLCs should input 100% if only one member is managing the account.
  4. Enter your valid SSN when requested.
  5. If you have a Checkbook IRA with a Trust, please use “Trustee” as your title. If you have a Checkbook IRA with an LLC, please use “Manager” as your title.
  6. Does this person maintain control of the company? - Answer “Yes”
  7. Does this person have access to the account? - Answer “Yes”
  8. Identity Documents and Verification: Complete and upload a form of ID that meets the requirements for Kraken.
  9. Proof of residence: Please upload a document that meets the requirements for Kraken. This could be a bank statement, payroll statement, or utility bill.

2. Beneficial Ownership:

  1. Are you publicly traded? - Answer “No”
  2. Are you legally exempt from providing Beneficial info? - Answer “No”
  3. If there are more members of the LLC or beneficiaries to the trust, please click “Add Beneficial Owner” and complete the information requested. For most users, they will not be adding any additional beneficial owners, as IRAs are individual retirement accounts.

3. W-9:

The W-9 is not normally an essential IRA document. Still, it is helpful to many different investment issuers and platforms such as Kraken, so Kraken has a record of the tax status of your Self-Directed IRA or Solo 401(k). On certain larger platforms where key customer support tax-related items are sometimes automated, an account must be properly tagged to ensure appropriate or unnecessary tax reporting is suppressed.

  1. Follow the instructions on how to fill out a W-9 for a Checkbook IRA with a Trust, a checkbook IRA with an LLC, or a Solo 401(k).
  2. Sign and date the W-9 Form.
  3. Submit along with your Kraken application.

Certification

Once you have entered all of the required information and included the necessary documentation, you can hit Submit.

Funding your Kraken Account

Please be aware that you can only fund your Kraken account through wire transfers and Plaid link is not available. While this is not ideal, our team is currently reviewing alternative options to make it easier to connect your Bank account to your Kraken account.


Gold clients will receive four free outgoing wire transfers per year, then after cost $10 per wire and typically take about 24 hours. For additional questions, please contact our support team.

 

Kraken Pro gives customer lower trade fees and is easier to initiate a wire.

 

Kraken Wire 1.png

Make sure to click wire transfer. Sometimes the system has a bug that switches back to "linked bank transfer, also known as Plaid, which is not currently supported.

 

Kraken Wire 2.png

 

Copy the wire details into your Bank's Portal. Make sure to include the reference number BE AWARE WIRE INFORMATION COULD CHANGE AT ANY TIME as needed by Kraken and the Crypto supporting Banking industry. This image was generated as of 6/10/2024, and crypto banking partners change frequently. Use this image as a guide only to find the wire information, and verify that the wire information is current.

Kraken Wire 3.png

 

 

 

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