Minimums for Gold IRA - What's your setup?

• •Been seeing a lot of chatter lately about minimum investment requirements for Gold IRAs.
• •Personally, I never really paid much attention to it back when I was setting mine up a few years ago.
• •It’s a comfortable chunk of my personal portfolio, which is in the low-to-mid 8 figures these days, so the minimums felt inconsequential at the time.

Been seeing a lot of chatter lately about minimum investment requirements for Gold IRAs. Personally, I never really paid much attention to it back when I was setting mine up a few years ago. My initial allocation was around $500k, primarily as a hedge against inflation and general market volatility, given the insane amounts of QE we’ve seen. It’s a comfortable chunk of my personal portfolio, which is in the low-to-mid 8 figures these days, so the minimums felt inconsequential at the time. I'm based in Greenwich, and frankly, most of the firms I dealt with were more interested in whale hunting than discussing entry-level accounts.

I know some of these custodians have pretty steep minimums, sometimes $25k or even $50k. Is that still the case across the board? I'm curious what everyone else experienced when they first got into this. Did you find those minimums restrictive at all? I remember thinking at the time that if someone needed to be in gold, those minimums might be a barrier, but for me, it was more about diversification and wealth preservation.

My initial contribution was a rollover from an old 401k, which made the process pretty seamless from a tax perspective – just a direct custodian-to-custodian transfer. For anyone looking at a fresh contribution, especially with a lower entry point, have you looked into the tax implications? I found that this Tax Calculator tool was actually pretty helpful for charting out scenarios, even for more complex situations. It’s always good to be on top of that stuff.

Ultimately, the initial investment size is probably less important than the long-term strategy, especially if you're holding for true preservation. But I'm genuinely interested in hearing from people on the forum: what were your minimums, and how did you feel about them when you started? Did you have to shop around a lot to find a custodian that fit your budget, or did you just jump in with what was available?