Bitcoin in Your Mortgage? The U.S. Housing Giant Just Changed the Game

The Quiet Tectonic Shift

It happened on a quiet Tuesday—no fanfare, no ticker tape. Just a single tweet from Bill Pulte, head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), asking: What if we started accepting Bitcoin as collateral for home loans?

I was sipping cold brew at 2 a.m., staring at my portfolio when the news hit. My heart didn’t skip a beat—just paused. Not because I wasn’t surprised (the market shot up 2.2% instantly), but because this felt… inevitable.

Why This Is Different

Let’s be clear: this isn’t about people using Bitcoin to buy houses yet. It’s about redefining asset legitimacy.

For decades, only cash deposits or traditional securities counted as “proof of wealth” in mortgage underwriting. Now, the system is asking: What if digital assets are just another form of capital?

The implications aren’t just economic—they’re cultural.

Meet the Gatekeepers: Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac

These two names—Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—don’t ring bells for most people. But they control roughly 70% of U.S. mortgages.

Think of them as financial glue: private lenders issue loans, then sell them to Fannie/Freddie—who package them into bonds and resell them globally.

If they accept crypto as collateral? That changes everything.

It doesn’t mean you can walk into a bank tomorrow and get a loan by staking BTC—but it means the door is now open, and that’s more powerful than any price rally.

The Hidden Layer: A Family Man With Crypto in His Portfolio?

Here’s where it gets personal—and slightly surreal. Bill Pulte isn’t some anonymous bureaucrat. He’s the grandson of William J. Pulte, founder of one of America’s largest homebuilders. And yes—he personally holds \(500K–\)1M in Bitcoin and Solana. He owns shares in Marathon Digital (a major U.S.-based miner). He once invested in GameStop like everyone else during the meme frenzy.

So when he says ‘let’s study this,’ he’s not just speaking policy—he’s speaking from experience.* The man who built homes also believes digital assets are part of future wealth. That shift? It’s contagious.

How Would It Actually Work?

Let me break down what “crypto-backed mortgage” might look like:

• You own $1 million worth of Bitcoin—held securely in cold storage.
• You want to buy a $400k house with no cash down—but instead use your BTC as collateral.
• Lenders would apply a haircut—say 30%—to account for volatility (so only $700k counts).
• You’d still need equity… but you don’t have to sell your coins first. The same logic applies to stablecoins like USDC or USDT—but their regulatory fate remains uncertain unless transparency improves drastically.

The private sector has already been testing this: i) Milo Credit launched crypto-backed mortgages back in 2022; over \(65M issued since then. i) Figure Technologies is building systems for \)20M+ deals backed by digital assets. i) Ledn offers bitcoin savings accounts that let users borrow against their holdings at 50% LTV (loan-to-value). The catch? These loans aren’t eligible for sale to Fannie/Freddie—and thus carry higher interest rates and less liquidity. The dream is closing that gap—with systemic trust replacing speculation.