A Michigan couple just bought a house using Bitcoin as collateral for a Fannie Mae-backed mortgage. They didn’t sell any of it.
The loan, funded on June 4, closed through a partnership between Coinbase and Better Home & Finance Holding Co. (BETR). It’s the first time a government-sponsored enterprise has accepted a conforming mortgage structured this way.
How the loan actually works
This isn’t a single mortgage with Bitcoin stuffed into the underwriting. It’s actually two loans bundled at closing.
The first is a standard Fannie Mae-backed mortgage. The second is a separate loan collateralized by the borrower’s digital assets. The digital assets sit in custody at Coinbase Prime, the company’s institutional-grade storage arm. Borrowers pledging BTC must put up 250% coverage, meaning $250K in Bitcoin for every $100K borrowed against it. For USDC, the stablecoin, the ratio drops to 125%.
