5 years have handed since Michael Saylor’s presumably home-destroying recommendation about utilizing a mortgage to maintain a maintain of bitcoin (BTC).
As of this week, the US government-sponsored mortgage system will lastly enable Saylor’s acolytes and different BTC homeowners to belatedly observe this recommendation.
When Saylor initially informed an viewers to mortgage their homes to purchase BTC on March 10, 2021, BTC was buying and selling close to $56,000. If anybody really took that recommendation, by November of the next yr, BTC had cratered 72% to $15,500.
Because of this, and given the excessive collateralization necessities of BTC-backed loans at the moment, they might have possible misplaced their home — except they’d entry to extra belongings to re-collateralize their mortgage.
On Thursday, Coinbase and its Higher Residence & Finance associate introduced their first crypto-backed mortgage that conforms to Fannie Mae requirements.
Coinbase’s first BTC-backed mortgage
Like Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae is a government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) underneath conservatorship of the US Federal Housing Finance Company. The web value of GSEs are periodically swept to the US Treasury.
A “conforming mortgage” is a standardized mortgage that enjoys rate of interest subsidies from GSEs and could be simply packaged along with different, comparable loans and re-hypothecated throughout Wall Avenue.
Debtors obtain two loans. The primary is a typical, USD Fannie Mae mortgage on the house. The second, secured by the debtors’ BTC or USDC, covers the preliminary down cost. Solely two digital belongings, BTC and Coinbase’s USDC, qualify at launch.
Extremely, debtors obtain simply 40% of the market value of BTC for its pledge as collateral. In different phrases, a borrower should lock up $250,000 in BTC to cowl a $100,000 down cost.
USDC, a stablecoin that has traded in a considerably narrower vary between roughly $0.86 and $1.10 towards USD on Kraken, will get a extra beneficiant 80% credit score.
Prospects reliquish personal key management to their crypto, holding it in custody at Higher’s Coinbase Prime account for the lifetime of the mortgage mortgage.
Get your home and preserve your crypto.
Crypto-backed mortgages are right here – growing entry to homeownership for tens of millions of Individuals.
Purchase a house with out changing your portfolio by utilizing BTC or USDC as collateral in your down cost.
Provided by Higher, powered by Coinbase. pic.twitter.com/9hfL3fVty5
— Coinbase 🛡️ (@coinbase) March 26, 2026
Invoice Pulte’s BTC mortgage pipeline
Federal Housing Finance Company (FHFA) Director William “Bill” Pulte ordered Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on June 25, 2025 to arrange to rely cryptocurrency as a qualifying mortgage asset.
This product is the direct results of his initiative.
Pulte is a quintessential belief fund child, the 37-year-old grandson of the billionaire PulteGroup founder. He made his identify by way of Twitter philanthropy engagement farming, giving freely money to strangers on social media.
His Twitter antics earned him a retweet from Donald Trump in 2019, and finally a nomination to run the FHFA.
His household’s charitable basis has publicly distanced itself from him, and PulteGroup’s board eliminated him from his decision-making position.
Pulte’s monetary disclosures listing as much as $1 million in BTC, comparable holdings in Solana tokens, and $5-25 million in Mara Holdings, a BTC mining firm.
After Trump’s nomination, he put in himself as chairman of each Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac boards, stacked them with allies, after which ordered the very crypto underwriting guidelines from which his BTC portfolio stands to profit.
This time, at 60% LTV, no margin calls
Coinbase instantly highlighted the technicality that this BTC-backed mortgage options, after an preliminary 60% haircut on its market worth, no additional margin calls or collateral top-ups.
If BTC drops 50%, the borrower owes nothing additional so long as the pre-agreed USD funds proceed. The borrower pays curiosity on two loans, not one, and the non-crypto backed USD mortgage is completely USD denominated from the beginning.
The pledged crypto can’t be traded. Coinbase’s associate returns it solely after the mortgage is absolutely repaid.
If the borrower falls 60 days behind on funds, Higher can liquidate the BTC and/or USDC.
Foreclosures on the house begins at 180 days.
Criticism
Shopper teams have been much less enthusiastic than Coinbase or Saylor about crypto-backed mortgages.
The Shopper Federation of America and Nationwide Shopper Legislation Heart wrote to Pulte that “a system built on crypto-related assets threatens to grow the market based on what may turn out to be a house of cards.”
Amanda Fischer at Higher Markets informed The American Prospect the directive “seemed to be based on some tweets.”
A number of senators have warned Pulte about his “serious conflict between your ability to order and approve the enterprises’ proposals as FHFA Director and to ultimately influence the development of such proposals as chair of the enterprises’ boards.”
The Authorities Accountability Workplace started investigating Pulte in December 2025.
Higher CEO Vishal Garg, the product’s chief evangelist, fired 900 workers over a Zoom name in December 2021.
Saylor’s unique imaginative and prescient for a BTC-backed mortgage arrived earlier than a 72% collapse in BTC inside two years.
Now, the US government-backed mortgage system is formally within the enterprise of constructing that guess simpler in 2026 at a 60% mortgage to worth (LTV) that wouldn’t even have coated that drawdown.
