Fannie Mae-Backed Bitcoin Home Mortgages Are Finally Here, Coinbase Says

By André Beganski

A Michigan couple helped make history when they recently closed on the first government-guaranteed mortgage secured by Bitcoin, Coinbase announced on Thursday.

Working with mortgage lender Better, the exchange said it had enabled Joe and Amy to secure a Fannie Mae-backed home loan by pledging Bitcoin as collateral for their down payment, allowing them to benefit from the government-sponsored enterprise’s safety net.

Coinbase said the product, first announced in March, is expected to roll out to qualified borrowers across the country in the coming months, while also supporting Circle’s USDC stablecoin initially. The offering will give homebuyers a way to leverage their crypto holdings—without ultimately selling their digital assets—Coinbase said.

“Tens of millions of Americans have built real wealth in digital assets,” Coinbase Head of Consumer and Platform Partnerships Mark Troianovski said in a statement. “That wealth now has a direct path to homeownership, creating new opportunities for the next generation.”

The mortgage system had long viewed crypto as too volatile to count toward a down payment on a conventional mortgage, yet gears began shifting last year after Bill Pulte, director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, ordered the mortgage watchdog to better align with President Trump’s vision for making the U.S. the “crypto capital of the world.”

The agency stipulated at the time that digital assets held in a self-custodial wallet should not be considered, only those held on centralized exchanges. Historically, lenders have only looked at assets such as stocks and bonds when evaluating homebuyers.

By posting Bitcoin as collateral for a down payment, Coinbase said crypto owners can avoid incurring capital gains taxes and forfeiting future upside. And unlike the exchange’s Bitcoin-backed lending product, revived last year, price swings don’t produce liquidations and “price volatility has absolutely no impact,” according to Better’s website.

Customers who take up Coinbase’s offering are set to receive two loans: one represents a standard mortgage that strictly plays by the federal government’s and Fannie Mae’s rules, alongside another tied to crypto as a second lien on the home.

For instance, Better allows buyers to cover a $100,000 down payment on a Fannie Mae-backed loan by placing a second lien on the home and pledging $250,000 in Bitcoin. Following a 60-day payment delinquency, Better says it may decide to liquidate pledged crypto.

In January, national wholesale lender Newrez said that it would begin recognizing Bitcoin and Ethereum, billing itself as the first major provider to do so. At the time, the offering was limited to “non-agency products,” while applying a steep discount to crypto holdings.

At the time, Pulte highlighted the move, saying “it begins” in an X post.

Still, Pulte’s directive wasn’t welcomed entirely on Capitol Hill. In January, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) contended that the shift would introduce “unnecessary risks to consumers and pose serious safety and soundness concerns for the U.S. housing and financial markets.”

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