Yep. I still see people asking about cashing out there IRA account to buy Bitcoin. It’s a really bad idea. (That’s why spot Bitcoin ETF was created.)You pay a 10% penalty for early withdrawal and ordinary income federal and state taxes(in states that have taxes). Losing 30%+ of your pot is a terrible idea.

The goal is to front load your IRA portfolio as much as possible to grow the pot as big as possible. Also, trading in an IRA is NOT a taxable event. It’s easy for my IRA to 10X by brokerage account (I’m the same person) because  in my brokerage account t I have to optimize for yearly taxes. Since every sale is a taxable event.