Do Safe Haven IRAs (Gold/Crypto) Expose Us to Fraud and Losses?

Do Safe Haven IRAs (Gold/Crypto) Expose Us to Fraud and Losses?
 
We’re told that they hold their value and will perhaps be the only thing of value when the dollar collapses. Is that true? Or is it just a marketing ruse to sell us into a scam? 
 
Fraudsters are adept at telling us that one exact thing that’s going to bait us into their scam. Almost every day I hear and see advertisements on social media and national television networks promoting gold and silver as assets that never go down in value, or crypto as the only thing that’s going to be worth anything when the dollar becomes worthless. Oftentimes, there is a paid spokesperson front and center – typically someone famous – while finding the founders of the firm requires a lot of digging. This is a red flag. We’ve seen a lot go south over the years, including when Tom Brady promoted FTX, when Kim Kardashian was fined for splashing EthereumMax on her social media, and when countless young YouTube stars promoted stable coins such as Terra-Luna.

While owning a hot slice of these assets in our wealth plan can add a great deal of performance, particularly if we know how to minimize taxes, capture gains and avoid the fraud, betting the farm on a safe haven can also put us far more at risk than we have been told. Since there were 69,000 crypto fraud complaints in 2023 with losses of at least $5.6 billion, and a laundry list of Ponzi-scheme Gold IRAs, it’s important to heed this investor alert before taking the bait.

Here are the things we’ll cover in this blog:
 
Bitcoin
Gold
Silver
Income-Producing Bonds, Dividend Stocks and Private Credit or Equity Opportunities
Real Estate
 
And here is more on each topic.
 
 
Bitcoin
Bitcoin was by far the best performer of 2023 and 2024 with gains of 158% and 115%, respectively. The returns dwarf stocks, which also had spectacular years. The S&P500 saw total return of 57.88% over the same two-year period, with over half of those gains concentrated in just 7 trillion-dollar technology companies. Whenever an asset gets hot, fraudsters harness the power of our FOMO and greed (or desperation) to fleece us. It’s human nature to want to buy at the top of the market. However, that is rarely a great idea.
  
Recently, a family member was taken in by a scam artist who promised crypto and gold pie in the sky returns and even mocked up a falsified broker statement that showed extraordinary gains within a short period of time. As soon as this person contacted our office with details of the “investment,” we were able to expose the fraud – hopefully preventing even more losses.
 
Sadly, it’s much easier to give your money to a shyster, or even to borrow money at high interest rates to invest, than it is to recover funds that have been stolen. So, how could these substantial losses have been avoided? Always grade your guru before you listen to anything that he says or writes. The person behind the scheme mentioned above was easily found online, alongside his lack of credentials and sketchy past.
 
Other challenges for Bitcoin and crypto investors include Crypto Winters, when the asset can lose 80% of its value in a very short period of time. In 2022, Bitcoin lost -67%, dropping from a high of $69,000 in Nov. 2021 to a low of just $15,600 in Nov. of 2022.

The high for Bitcoin was $109,358 on Jan. 19, 2025. By February 7, 2025, the price was down to $95,745 – a loss of -12.44%. At $2,570, Ethereum is down -37.44% from its December 2024 high of $4,108. As I indicated in my 2024 Investment of the Year blog on March 24, 2024 when I named Bitcoin as the super performer, after a Bitcoin halving event (April 2024), the high is often a year later. Within two years, it is common for Bitcoin to bottom out again. (Click to access that blog.)  
 
Instead of riding the volatility up and down and watching our net worth and FICO score tank for 18 months or so during Crypto Winters, our simple pie chart plan with regular rebalancing helps us to stay on the right side of the trade. You can read about this age-appropriate, diversified plan in The ABCs of Money, 6th edition, or learn and implement it at our Financial Freedom Retreat.    
 
Gold
Have you heard an ad touting that gold never loses its value? I was shocked to hear that claim on an ad on a major television station last week. Gold IRA ads are popping up everywhere. However, many of the claims are far from the truth. After the high of $1895 set in September of 2011, gold dropped to a low of $1062 by November 2015, for losses of -44%. A million dollars sank to a value of just $560,000. Gold didn’t crawl back to $1900/ounce until October of 2020. Losing half of our wealth for a decade can be devastating.
 
In 1980, after hitting a high of $800/ounce, gold prices plunged to $300/ounce by 1982 and stayed in that range for a quarter of a century. Finally, in 2005, gold prices started to climb again.

Gold is yet another example of why it’s never a great idea to bet the farm on anything. Here again, the pie chart diversification strategy with 1-3 times a year rebalancing prompts us to capture gains at the high and buy at the low – something we’re incapable of doing if we moved all in at the top of the market, as many investors do when gold prices soar. Most people don’t buy low because they can’t.
 
Just as we saw $5.6 billion in crypto fraud in 2023, gold IRA ruses can be rampant. According to a report from the Securities and Exchange Commission:
 
Fraud promoters who want to engage in Ponzi schemes or other fraudulent conduct may exploit self-directed IRAs because they permit investors to hold unregistered securities and the custodians or trustees of these accounts likely have not investigated the securities or the background of the promoter. There are a number of ways that fraud promoters may use these weaknesses and misperceptions to perpetrate a fraud on unsuspecting investors.
 
When we watch an advertisement, receive an email or listen in on social media, the person is benefiting from whatever they are selling. Influencers are marketers not economic geniuses. Often, they are paid to promote – even those who are as famous as Kim Kardashian and Tom Brady. False statements can look quite real. The adage, “When it looks too good to be true it probably is,” can be a great rule of thumb. Do your due diligence or get a 2nd opinion from a trusted expert – before taking action.
 
Silver
Silver often runs in tandem with gold. However, since 2011’s high, silver has been rather subdued. At $32.23/ounce, silver is still down -34% from its 2011 high of almost $50. That is why we’ve been leaning into silver in our sample pie chart wealth plan over gold. Since its low of $11.62 on March 18, 2020, the iShares Silver Trust (symbol: SLV) has almost tripled, whereas the Gold Trust (GLD) has almost doubled. Both clearly are super performers. Here again, we want a plan (that pie chart plan I keep mentioning) that allows us to capture gains during periods of great performance and buy low when the asset price tanks.
 
Income-Producing Bonds, Dividend Stocks and Private Credit or Equity Opportunities
More and more we’re seeing conservative investors who are sold into risky investments as safe, including hedge funds, illiquid private equity or loans, debt-laden “income-producing” publicly traded equities, and long-term bonds. While we all hear about the $36.4 trillion in public debt, few of us are aware that there is actually $101 trillion in total debt and loans, when you factor in corporate, consumer and financial services debentures.

We live in a Debt World. Loaning money, particularly long-term, is a very risky strategy. As I’ve mentioned frequently, long-term bonds lost more than stocks in 2022. Bonds lost again in 2024. The mantra for a Debt World is: Keep the terms short and the creditworthiness high.

Many of the long-term bonds and private credit or equity opportunities lose value the moment we purchase them and often become illiquid – something we can’t easily get out of. Many of the dividend stocks are losing value – a great deal more than the rise in yield can wipe out.
 
One client was told he was earning a 5% yield, when his own brokerage statement showed just 2.1%! Technically, the income he earned was 5.2%. However, when you factor in the fees and the lost principal value of the investments, the true return was barely above breakeven. This was at a time when the S&P500 returned a total return of 58% over a 2-year period.
 
It’s difficult to earn money in a Debt World without losing principal. That’s why we spend one full day at our Financial Freedom Retreats educating everyone on avoiding risk and losses, understanding the fine print, and leaning into safer opportunities with a reasonable dividend. Remember the important adage of Will Rogers, “I’m more concerned with the return of my money than the return on my money.” Having said that, if you keep the terms short and the creditworthiness high on your CDs or T-Bills, you should earn almost as much as an illiquid, long-term junk bond.  
 
Real Estate
We can only build equity when prices rise. If prices fall, we could end up with a mortgage that is higher than the value of the property. In that event, all kinds of problems emerge. As you can see in the chart below, over 20 million homes were lost in the Great Recession.

Today, home prices are higher than ever, and unaffordable to most Americans and Canadians.

The solutions for a world where housing costs can eat up 30% or more of our salary require thinking differently. There are many case studies to start learning about creative solutions for a 21st Century world that doesn’t add up in the Real Estate section of The ABCs of Money, 6th edition. Join us for our Real Estate Master Class on June 14, 2025. If you’re interested in all of our courses, we offer a bargain-priced 12-month all-access pass. Email [email protected] for additional information.

Bottom Line
Whenever something gets hot, the fraudsters come out in full force with all kinds of savory lies to bait us into buying their scam. Broker-salesmen might offer us income-producing opportunities that cost us principal, limit our ability to get our money back, are higher risk than we realize and have fees that reduce our income by half. The solution is that we must be the boss of our money. We must know exactly what we own and why and read the fine print of the opportunity – before we sign on the dotted line. Having blind faith that someone else is protecting our future in a Debt World, where “safe” assets might lose money and become illiquid, can be a very expensive lesson.
 
At the same time, because safe haven investments can be super performers and offer a hedge against a market downturn, we include them as sample options for a hot slice or two of an age-appropriate, diversified nest egg strategy.  
 


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Join us at our online Spring Financial Freedom Retreat April 25-27, 2025 (online) and our Stock Masterclass (learn the strategies that earned me the ranking of #1 stock picker) on May 3, 2025. If you'd like a life-changing adventure of a lifetime, be our guest at a royal manor house in Cornwall, England, March 12-19, 2027. Only nine rooms are available. Call 310-430-2397 or email [email protected] to learn more. 

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* Know what's safe in a Debt World.

You'll even discover how to save thousands annually with smarter big-ticket choices. Yes, it's a complete money makeover. 
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Email [email protected] or call 310-430-2397 to learn more and register. Learn the 15+ things you'll master and read testimonials in the flyer on the home page at NataliePace.com. Register with friends and family to receive the best price. ​

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If you’d like an unbiased 2nd opinion on your current wealth plan, email [email protected] for pricing and information.

Natalie Wynne Pace is an Advocate for Sustainability, Financial Literacy & Women's Empowerment. Natalie is the bestselling author of The ABCs of Money and The Power of 8 Billion: It's Up to Us, and is the co-creator of the Earth Gratitude Project. She has been ranked as a No. 1 stock picker, above over 835 A-list pundits, by an independent tracking agency (TipsTraders). Her book The ABCs of Money remained at or near the #1 Investing Basics e-book on Amazon for over 3 years (in its vertical), with over 120,000 downloads and a mean 5-star ranking. The 6th edition of The ABCs of Money and the 2nd edition of Put Your Money Where Your Heart Is are the most recent releases of these books. Follow her on Instagram. 
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Natalie Pace's easy as a pie chart nest egg strategies earned gains in the last two recessions and have outperformed the bull markets in between. That is why her Investor Educational Retreats, books and private coaching are enthusiastically recommended by Nobel Prize winning economist Gary S. Becker, TD AMERITRADE chairman Joe Moglia, Kay Koplovitz and many Main Street investors who have transformed their lives using her Thrive Budget and investing strategies. Click to view a video testimonial from Nilo Bolden.​​

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Important Disclaimers
Please note: Natalie Pace does not act or operate like a broker. She reports on financial news, and is one of the most trusted sources of financial literacy, education and forensic analysis in the world. Natalie Pace educates and informs individual investors to give investors a competitive edge in their personal decision-making. Any publicly traded companies or funds mentioned by Natalie Pace are not intended to be buy or sell recommendations.

ALWAYS do your research and consult an experienced, reputable financial professional before buying or selling any security, and consider your long-term goals and strategies. Investors should NOT be all in on any asset class or individual stocks. Your retirement plan should reflect a diversified strategy, which has been designed with the assistance of a financial professional who is familiar with your goals, risk tolerance, tax needs and more. The "trading" portion of your portfolio should be a very small part of your investment strategy, and the amount of money you invest into individual companies should never be greater than your experience, wisdom, knowledge and patience.  

Information has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. However, NataliePace.com does not warrant its completeness or accuracy. Opinions constitute our judgment as of the date of this publication and are subject to change without notice. This material is not intended as an offer or solicitation for the purchase or sale of any financial instrument.