Bitcoin Home Loans Backed by Fannie Mae Move Closer to Reality,
A Michigan couple just made housing history. Working with mortgage lender Better, Coinbase announced on Thursday that the couple, identified only as Joe and Amy, successfully closed on the first-ever Bitcoin-backed Fannie Mae mortgage, using their Bitcoin holdings as collateral for their down payment rather than selling their crypto to raise cash.
This marks the arrival of the Bitcoin-backed Fannie Mae mortgage as a mainstream financial product, a milestone that would have seemed far-fetched just a few years ago when regulators treated crypto as too volatile to factor into home loan approvals.
Coinbase said the product, first announced in March, is expected to roll out to qualified borrowers across the country in the coming months, with support for Circle’s USDC stablecoin included from the start. The goal is straightforward: let crypto holders leverage their digital wealth to buy a home without triggering capital gains taxes or giving up future upside on their holdings.
“Tens of millions of Americans have built real wealth in digital assets,” said Mark Troianovski, Coinbase Head of Consumer and Platform Partnerships. “That wealth now has a direct path to homeownership, creating new opportunities for the next generation.”
The mechanics of the product involve two loans running in parallel. Customers receive a standard mortgage that follows Fannie Mae’s federal guidelines, alongside a second loan tied to crypto as a second lien on the home. For example, a buyer covering a $100,000 down payment on a Fannie Mae-backed loan would pledge $250,000 in Bitcoin under the arrangement. Importantly, day-to-day market price swings will not trigger margin calls or sudden liquidations, according to Better’s website, though a 60-day payment delinquency could lead the lender to liquidate the pledged crypto.
The path to a Bitcoin-backed Fannie Mae mortgage was cleared after a significant regulatory pivot. Last year, Federal Housing Finance Agency director Bill Pulte ordered the mortgage watchdog to better align with President Trump’s vision for making the U.S. the “crypto capital of the world,” directing the agency to recognise crypto held on centralised exchanges as a valid asset class for mortgage qualification purposes. Self-custodial wallets were excluded from the policy. Historically, lenders had only considered traditional assets like stocks and bonds in their evaluations.
The shift was not universally welcomed. In January, Senator Elizabeth Warren argued that the move would introduce unnecessary risks to consumers and raise serious safety and soundness concerns for U.S. housing and financial markets.
The Coinbase-Better offering is not the only sign that crypto is entering the mortgage space. In January, national wholesale lender Newrez said it would begin recognising Bitcoin and Ethereum for mortgage qualification, billing itself as the first major provider to do so, though that offering was initially limited to non-agency products and applied a steep discount to crypto holdings. Pulte acknowledged that development at the time with a pointed “it begins” on X.
With the first Bitcoin-backed Fannie Mae mortgage now closed, the broader rollout will be one to watch as more crypto-wealthy Americans explore whether their digital assets can finally open the door to homeownership.
