The Trump administration just opened the door for millions of Americans to use their crypto portfolios as collateral for home loans. Federal Housing Finance Agency director Bill Pulte ordered mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in June to develop frameworks for counting cryptocurrency as an asset in mortgage risk assessments, potentially reshaping how 15% of Americans who hold digital assets can finance their homes.
The Trump administration is betting big on crypto - and now they want your Bitcoin to help buy your house. In a June directive that's sending ripples through both the mortgage and cryptocurrency industries, Federal Housing Finance Agency director Bill Pulte ordered Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to prepare frameworks for counting digital assets in mortgage risk assessments.
The timing isn't coincidental. Pulte wrote on X that the directive came "after significant studying, and in keeping with President Trump's vision to make the United States the crypto capital of the world." It's a bold move that could unlock homeownership for the roughly 15% of Americans who invest in digital assets, according to Gallup.
The mechanics aren't revolutionary - they're evolutionary. "A lender would look at the assets that a potential borrower has, and before, they might have only considered stocks and bonds and those traditional kinds of investments, but now they would consider those less traditional cryptocurrency investments," Daryl Fairweather, chief economist at Redfin, told CNBC. She points out that some stocks are actually more volatile than established cryptocurrencies, so lenders already have frameworks to handle risky assets.
But here's where it gets interesting politically. Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., immediately jumped on the directive, introducing legislation to codify crypto mortgages into federal law. It's part of a broader Republican push to position America as the global crypto hub, with Trump himself promising a "strategic national Bitcoin stockpile" during his campaign.
The pushback came swift and predictable. A group of Democratic senators fired off a letter to Pulte in July, calling his proposals "risky" and demanding transparency about the decision-making process. They're worried about crypto's notorious volatility - remember when Bitcoin crashed from $69,000 to $15,500 in 2022? - potentially destabilizing the housing market that and are tasked with protecting.