Crypto May Be Used as Collateral for Mortgage Loans in U.S.

The U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) instructed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to develop proposals for including cryptocurrency in mortgage loan risk assessments.

William J. Pulte, Director of the FHFA, signed Decision No. 2025-360, directing the government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to begin work on integrating crypto into the risk assessment framework for single-family home mortgage loans.

The initiative envisions allowing cryptocurrency to be used as reserve assets without mandatory conversion into U.S. dollars prior to closing the loan. The new directive takes immediate effect and is to be implemented as soon as possible.

The Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) are two U.S. government-sponsored enterprises established to support the mortgage market. Their primary function is to purchase mortgage loans from banks and other lenders and package them into mortgage-backed securities to ensure liquidity and reduce risks for lenders. Their activity enables banks to issue more mortgage loans, supporting stability and affordability in the housing finance market.

Previously, crypto-assets weren’t included in credit risk assessment procedures used by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac unless they were first converted into fiat currency. This approach significantly limited access to mortgages for potential borrowers holding substantial digital assets. According to the FHFA order, cryptocurrency is now considered a promising asset class capable of complementing existing liquidity sources beyond traditional stock and bond markets.

The FHFA officially acknowledged that considering additional borrower assets, such as cryptocurrency, can improve the completeness and accuracy of evaluating an applicant’s financial stability. At the same time, crypto must be held on the balance sheet of a U.S.-regulated centralized platform and comply with legal standards.

According to the directive, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac must develop their own risk assessment methodologies that account for the volatility of the cryptocurrency market and the share of such assets in the overall reserve structure. All changes must be pre-approved by the respective enterprise’s Board of Directors and coordinated with the FHFA before implementation.

The FHFA’s step comes amid an intensifying housing crisis in the U.S. According to Statista data, the value of issued mortgage loans in the U.S. fell to a record low of $851 billion in mid-2024. The main causes of this decline are rising interest rates and a shortage of affordable housing.

To address these issues, the FHFA plans to explore the use of crypto-assets in the context of mortgage eligibility. Pulte stated that cryptocurrency could become an unconventional but viable source of capital for families previously excluded from the mortgage market. The regulator intends to consider the use of Bitcoin and other digital assets to expand borrower opportunities and reduce barriers to obtaining mortgages.

Max Krupyshev, CEO of CoinsPaid, spoke about the prospects of using crypto as collateral in real estate. According to him, cryptocurrency enables access to real estate for new user categories. “Representatives of the IT business, freelancers, influencers — mostly young people who have digital assets but lack credit history in the traditional banking system. For them, mortgages are practically inaccessible. However, this could change over the next 3–7 years thanks to crypto initiatives in the mortgage market,” Krupyshev stated.

Real estate agents in the U.S. were previously granted the ability to officially accept cryptocurrency payments.

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