Better Home & Finance Holding Co. (NASDAQ: BETR) has partnered with Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN) to announce the funding of the first Fannie Mae-approved mortgage backed by Bitcoin.
The companies announced the loan was transacted in Ann Arbor, Michigan, by a married couple in their early 30s identified only as Joe and Amy. According to a statement from the companies, the couple “had built meaningful savings in digital assets but faced the same obstacle that stops millions of qualified buyers: insufficient cash for a traditional down payment. Rather than liquidating their long-term Bitcoin position, incurring capital gains taxes, and forfeiting future upside, they pledged their crypto as collateral and successfully purchased their first home.” The companies gave no details on the depth and scope of the mortgage.
The new product, which was first announced in March, enables borrowers who qualify for a mortgage with Better to pledge Bitcoin or USDC as collateral to fund their cash down payment without liquidating tokenized assets. Support will expand to additional digital assets at a later date, the companies added.
“The 30-year fixed mortgage was designed for a generation that kept its savings in a bank account and built equity through a single employer. That’s not the financial reality of millions of qualified buyers today that are building real wealth in digital assets,” said Vishal Garg, founder and CEO of Better. “We’re excited to expand access to all qualified borrowers to fix an ongoing issue: buyers who qualify on every measure that matters but cannot clear the down payment hurdle because their wealth isn’t where the system expects to find it.”
“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 and 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. Tens of millions of Americans have built real wealth in digital assets. That wealth now has a direct path to homeownership, creating new opportunities for the next generation of homebuyers.”
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