Coinbase and Better Home & Finance Holding Company have funded the first Fannie Mae-backed mortgage using bitcoin as collateral and plan to make the product available to qualified borrowers nationwide by the summer.
The product, first announced in March, is designed to allow homebuyers to use their crypto holdings toward a down payment without selling their digital assets. Initially, the product supports bitcoin and the USDC stablecoin, with plans to add more digital assets over time as the market matures.
Coinbase and Better have now closed the first such loan for Joe and Amy, a married couple in their early 30s from Ann Arbor, Michigan. Joe, a software engineer, and Amy, a graduate student, had built savings in digital assets but lacked enough cash for a traditional down payment, the companies said. Rather than selling their bitcoin, paying capital gains taxes, and giving up potential future upside, Joe and Amy pledged their bitcoin as collateral and purchased their first home.
"At Coinbase, we believe that bitcoin should do more than sit in a wallet. It should work for the people who hold it," said Mark Troianovski, head of consumer & platform partnerships at Coinbase. "Funding the first token-backed conforming mortgage is one of the most tangible demonstrations of that vision that we have seen."
