Crypto-Backed Mortgages: What Fannie Mae Now Backs

Fannie Mae has not started accepting Bitcoin as collateral on its own mortgages. What changed on 26 March 2026 is narrower: the lender Better Home & Finance and the exchange Coinbase launched a way to fund a down payment with a loan secured by Bitcoin or USDC, while the main loan stays an ordinary Fannie Mae mortgage. The companies say these crypto-backed mortgages carry the same Fannie Mae backing as other conforming mortgages.

The earlier version of this article said Fannie Mae would take Bitcoin as collateral, custody it and apply haircuts. Those details were not in the companies’ announcements or in Fannie Mae’s published rules, and have been removed. The distinction matters for borrowers, because the crypto sits behind a separate private loan, not behind the mortgage Fannie Mae buys.

How the two-loan structure behind crypto-backed mortgages works

According to Better’s product page, a borrower receives two loans at closing, both originated by Better. The first is a conforming Fannie Mae mortgage on the home. The second pays the cash down payment and is secured by the pledged crypto and a second lien on the home. Better’s own announcement says that second loan is privately financed.

The terms Better publishes include:

Bitcoin is pledged at a 250% collateralisation ratio: its example pledges $250,000 of Bitcoin to cover a $100,000 cash down payment. Inman, a property news site, reports a ratio of 125% for USDC.
Better keeps the crypto in a custodial account on the Coinbase platform until the down-payment loan is repaid, and returns it afterwards.
There are no top-ups or margin calls if the price falls. Better may liquidate the pledge after 60 days of delinquency, while foreclosure on the home begins separately at day 180, in line with Fannie Mae guidelines.
Fifteen-year and 30-year fixed terms are offered, and Coinbase One members can receive a credit of 1% of the loan, up to $10,000, at closing.

What Fannie Mae’s own Selling Guide still says about crypto

Fannie Mae’s rules on virtual currency have not been replaced by this product. They allow crypto that has been exchanged into US dollars to be used for the down payment, closing costs and reserves, but only if the exchange is documented, the dollars are held in a US or state-regulated financial institution and they are verified before closing. Crypto may not be used for the earnest-money deposit. The Better structure sidesteps those steps by funding the down payment from a second loan, so the pledged crypto never becomes the borrower’s own funds in the Fannie Mae file.

Better and Coinbase say the first loan closed in June

On 4 June 2026 the companies said they had funded the first Fannie Mae-backed mortgage secured by Bitcoin, and planned to make the product available to qualified borrowers nationwide by summer 2026. TSN has not confirmed how widely it is available now. The idea of using crypto without selling it has a wider setting in TSN’s coverage of native Bitcoin as collateral on Aave and Base’s kit for crypto-backed loans in apps.

Who carries the risk in a crypto-secured down payment

The appeal is clear and, on the companies’ account, real: a borrower who qualifies on income and credit but lacks cash can keep a long-term position and avoid selling it to fund a deposit. Better says 41% of its pre-approved customers fall into that group. The costs sit in the detail. A 250% ratio is a thick buffer for the lender, which is why no margin calls are needed, but it means a borrower who defaults can lose the home and several times the loan’s value in crypto. Inman also reports that the structure adds between 0.5 and 1.5 percentage points to the borrower’s rate, which is a reported figure and not one TSN found in Better’s materials.

Policymakers are divided. Senators Dick Durbin, Elizabeth Warren and Jeff Merkley wrote to the Federal Housing Finance Agency to criticise Fannie Mae’s decision, and Inman says they warned that it came without a pilot, public input or public research into default risk, and that taxpayers could bear losses. Because custody sits with Coinbase, borrowers may also want to read how the exchange handles customer assets; TSN has reported that Ireland’s central bank fined Coinbase over safeguarding of customer funds. For a borrower, the practical test is simple: read both loan agreements, and treat the crypto pledge as an obligation that can be lost, not as free leverage.

The next evidence to look for is default and liquidation data once loans have run for a year, and any response from the housing regulator to the senators’ questions.

Updated 9 November 2026: Rewritten against the Better and Coinbase releases, Better’s product page and Fannie Mae’s Selling Guide. Removed claims, unsupported by those sources, that Fannie Mae would hold Bitcoin, apply a 50% haircut, saw an 8% price jump, or that Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae were reviewing similar policies.