Better Home & Finance, the parent company of Better.com, is partnering with Coinbase to launch token-backed down payments for conforming mortgages.
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Americans who qualify for a mortgage with Better will be able to use Bitcoin or USD Coin as collateral to fund their down payment through a private loan, the company announced in a press release Thursday. They will still receive the same government-sponsored enterprise support as other conforming mortgages without liquidating tokenized assets and potentially triggering a taxable event.
These mortgages will be originated and serviced by Better, an AI-native originator, while the Bitcoin and stablecoin pledges are powered by Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, according to the release.
“Better was founded to make homeownership more accessible for all Americans, and this partnership with Coinbase introduces a new pathway to realizing the American Dream for the 52 million Americans who own digital assets,” said Vishal Garg, CEO and founder of Better, in the release.
Market reports found 20% of American adults have owned digital assets, and
To use the product, a borrower must take out two loans, one of which is backed by Bitcoin or USDC and used to fund the down payment.
“The ability to transform digital wealth into housing access is an exciting milestone in our mission to increase economic freedom,” said Max Branzburg, head of consumer and business products at Coinbase, in the release. “Token-backed mortgages are a major first step to unlocking homeownership for the younger generations that have struggled with barriers to saving for a traditional down payment.”
Homeownership
Almost 50% of younger investors said they already own crypto, compared with 18% of older investors, as token-backed mortgages can help younger Americans better access homeownership, according to a Coinbase report from 2025.
Redfin found 12.7% of Gen Z and Millennial homebuyers sold tokenized assets to fund their down payments as well, less than the 3.5% of Gen X and 0.5% of Baby Boomers.
Pledged USDC can also earn rewards that help offset the mortgage payment, reducing the net effective interest rate for the Circle Internet Financial product that Coinbase helped launch. A crypto-backed mortgage on a $1 million home with a 30% down payment and five-year timeline carries an annual interest rate of 5.73%, compared with 9.68% of a conventional mortgage, according to Milo’s mortgage comparison calculator.
The mortgages remain as standard conforming loans, which enable significantly lower interest rates, the release said.
“[This is] a good option for select homebuyers who hold crypto with Coinbase, and we expect it to be a niche that won’t cause systemic housing risk,” said Jeff Taylor, founder of Digital Risk. “This is a key development after Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, pushed them in June 2025
Fannie’s former CEO, Hugh Frater, has joined Better’s board of directors, the company announced Wednesday.
Nonmortgage loans collateralized by crypto or tokenized assets that pay out cash dollars for down payments are considered in Fannie’s debt-to-income ratios, which must be met to get a GSE mortgage, but they do not appear to be barred by the enterprise’s existing crypto restrictions.
“Mortgages for clients that have crypto have always been sellable to GSEs as long as clients qualified with the suitable DTI ratios,” Josip Rupena, CEO of Milo, a fintech that specializes in crypto home lending, told NMN Thursday. “However, this announcement will help bring more awareness to the crypto mortgage category.”
It appears no change at Fannie had to be made to accommodate the product, he said.
“It does not change anything for GSE and their guidelines. Clients will borrow dollars from Coinbase and use them for the downpayment and the monthly payment will need to be included in the DTI calculations. In fact we sold loans to the GSE in 2023 already,” Rupena said.
