Better Home & Finance And Coinbase Announce Launch Of Partnership With Fannie Mae To Offer Crypto-Backed Mortgages

On March 26, 2026, mortgage provider Better Home & Finance and cryptocurrency trading platform Coinbase announced a partnership with Fannie Mae to offer Fannie Mae-complaint mortgages backed by cryptocurrency from borrowers as collateral. The partnership represents the first mortgage products backed by cryptocurrency to be accepted by Fannie Mae since FHFA Director Bill Pulte’s June 26, 2025 directive ordering Fannie Mae to prepare a proposal to the FHFA for the consideration of prospective buyers’ cryptocurrency assets in its risk assessments of single-family mortgage loans.

As part of the announced partnership, prospective homeowners will be able to pledge certain approved cryptocurrency assets (namely bitcoin or USD coin) to fund a down payment on a home in lieu of cash, and without liquidating their cryptocurrency assets. The structure allows buyers to effectively take out a second loan on their down payment backed by their cryptocurrency assets, while also receiving a standard Fannie Mae-backed loan on the home itself. In its announcement, Better asserts that Fannie Mae backing will allow prospective home buyers to receive significantly lower interest rates than that seen on existing cryptocurrency-backed mortgage products offered by other providers, which have not yet received the backing of Fannie Mae.

This announcement raises significant implications for the mortgage industry as GSE-backed crypto lending may open up new products for lenders and servicers in origination and re-financing of residential mortgages.

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