What is a crypto mortgage? And what’s the role of Fannie Mae, Coinbase, Better Mortgage?

There are 3 types of crypto mortgages: borrowing against crypto to buy a home, borrowing against crypto for down payment, and using crypto to qualify for mortgage income or reserve requirements

Since mid-2025, there have been 3 key inflection points in safely allowing crypto mortgages. Below, I explain each one, but first: what is a crypto mortgage anyway? And who are crypto mortgages even relevant for in the U.S. housing market? Let’s take a look.

WHAT IS A CRYPTO MORTGAGE?

Besides an attention-grabbing headline, what is a crypto mortgage? There are 3 main answers.

The first type of crypto mortgage is when mortgage lenders allow your crypto to count toward income calculations or reserve requirements when approving your mortgage.

The second type of crypto mortgage is when the exchange where you hold your crypto lets you borrow against the value of your crypto to buy a home.

The third type of crypto mortgage is when the exchange where you hold your crypto and the lender making your mortgage let you borrow against the value of your crypto to fund a down payment for a home.

All 3 types of crypto mortgages allow you to buy a home without requiring you to sell your crypto, but there’s fine print for each, which are noted in the sections below.

As crypto has become a bigger part of peoples’ overall asset holdings, the first type of crypto mortgage has become more of a priority for policymakers. Allowing crypto to count toward income calculations and reserve requirements seems obvious (given that it’s allowed for other non-crypto investments), but it’s only now gaining traction.

That brings us to crypto mortgage inflection point 1.

CRYPTO MORTGAGE INFLECTION POINT 1: FANNIE MAE & FREDDIE MAC

I said above there have been 3 key crypto mortgage inflection points since last year.

The first one came in late-June 2025 when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s regulator — the Federal Housing Finance Agency — pushed them to treat crypto assets similarly to retirement assets when lenders assess how much in reserves mortgage borrowers have left over after closing a loan.

Depending on the lender, retirement assets like 401(k), IRA, etc., are counted at 60% to 100% of their value based on the lender and how close the borrower is to retirement.

For example, if retirement assets are less liquid (because the borrower is far from retirement and/or not vested), a lower percentage of those assets counts toward reserves when a loan is being approved.

But crypto hasn’t been allowed toward reserves (or down payment) at all unless it’s sold and converted to U.S. dollars.

Last June, FHFA chief Bill Pulte asked Fannie and Freddie to treat crypto similarly to retirement assets in the loan process, provided a borrower held those crypto assets in U.S.-regulated exchanges.

This made a lot of headlines, but because Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac back the U.S. $2 trillion per year mortgage market and package American home loans into bonds that are traded in global financial markets, they are exceedingly careful (translation: slow) in updating loan approval guidelines.

This is a good thing for systemic safety, and is designed to avoid a 2008-like global financial crisis.

But it does make sense for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to allow crypto assets to count toward reserve requirements in mortgage approvals, albeit with some guardrails.

Pulte’s crypto mortgage push last year only asked Fannie and Freddie to consider U.S.-exchange-held crypto to be counted in reserve requirements. His request didn’t ask for crypto assets to be used in income calculations.

Which brings us to crypto mortgage inflection point 2.

CRYPTO MORTGAGE INFLECTION POINT 2: NEWREZ

As a reminder from section 1 above, the first type of crypto mortgage is when mortgage lenders allow your crypto to count toward income calculations or reserve requirements when approving your mortgage, without requiring you to sell your crypto.

In section 2 above, I discussed how Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been asked by their regulator FHFA to consider crypto assets in reserve requirements, which Fannie and Freddie haven’t implemented yet.

But lenders like Newrez who are big enough to make competitive mortgage loans without Fannie and Freddie backing are leading the way on crypto mortgages that allow crypto for income calculations AND reserve requirements.

Newrez is America’s 4th largest mortgage originator with $63 billion in 2025 fundings, plus they’re America’s 4th largest mortgage servicer with an $852b servicing portfolio for more than 4 million homeowners.

In January, Newrez launched a crypto mortgage program that will count unsold crypto — including Bitcoin, Ethereum, SEC‑approved spot ETFs backed by BTC or ETH, and USD‑backed stablecoins held in U.S.-regulated exchanges — toward borrower income calculations AND reserve requirements when approving home loans.

As I noted above, a lender’s income calculations and reserve requirements using retirement (or other assets that won’t be liquidated) don’t count those assets at full values. This makes sense because lenders must leave some room for market movement of those non-liquidated assets if they’re being used to assess a borrower’s ability to repay.

Here’s how Newrez answers the question “How Will My Crypto Assets Be Valued?” in the mortgage approval process:

A market-adjusted valuation will apply to qualifying crypto assets, ensuring we prudently integrate eligible crypto assets into our mortgage decisions.

This means they won’t count all the crypto you have because crypto is volatile. This is a good signal for how Fannie and Freddie will also do it if/when they allow crypto to count toward income calculations or reserves.

But for now, it’s good to see innovators like Newrez setting a responsible tone for crypto mortgages.

Newrez mortgages that use crypto assets for income or reserve calculations are NOT sold to Fannie or Freddie. Their scale allows them to service and/or securitize these loans without government backing.

Which brings us to a third key crypto mortgage innovation milestone that happened this week.

CRYPTO MORTGAGE INFLECTION POINT 3: COINBASE & BETTER MORTGAGE

As of today (March 26, 2026), Better Mortgage & Fannie Mae will allow you to borrow against your Coinbase-held crypto for a down payment on a home.

So if you’re buying a home and have Bitcoin and/or USDC holdings at Coinbase, you can now borrow against that crypto for down payments when getting Fannie Mae-backed home loans with Better Mortgage.

This is a niche offering with one lender (who funded 0.23% of America’s mortgages last year*) and one crypto exchange, but it’s important that Fannie Mae will back mortgage loans Better makes that use associated Coinbase crypto loans to fund down payments.

Fannie Mae often pilots programs with select parties this way before allowing mainstream adoption.

Today’s announcement takes last year’s FHFA crypto push a step further by allowing homebuyers getting a Fannie Mae-backed loan with Better Mortgage to fund their down payment with a crypto loan.

This is the third type of crypto mortgage (as noted above), where the exchange that holds your crypto and the lender making your mortgage let you borrow against the value of your crypto to fund a down payment for a home. And you don’t have to sell your crypto.

Here’s how Better describes the process:

Your crypto stays in custody with Better Mortgage, in its custodial account on the Coinbase platform, for the life of the down payment loan, and is returned to you once the down payment loan is repaid.

This is a good option for select homebuyers who hold crypto with Coinbase, and a homebuyer-friendly niche that shouldn’t cause systemic housing risk.*

I support all safe innovation in lending. And of the 3 crypto mortgage types in section 1 above, I believe type 1 is the most mainstream and safest way to allow crypto into the housing market.

Please ping me with questions and additional thoughts.

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Reference:

– Better Mortgage & Fannie Mae Allow Homebuyers To Use Coinbase Crypto Loans As Down Payments

– Details on Better/Coinbase Crypto Mortgages

– FHFA Directs Fannie & Freddie To Allow Crypto In Reserve Requirements

– Newrez details on using crypto for mortgage qualification

* NOTE: In Better Mortgage 4Q25 earnings on March 13, 2026, they reported $4.7 billion in funded volume for 2025, which is 0.23% of the $2.05 trillion in U.S. mortgages funded last year. As for loan growth in 2026, Better CEO Vishal Garg said the following on the earnings call: “We remain on track to reach $1 billion in monthly volume by May 2026.”