Why Crypto for Mortgages Matters
Olivia Capozzalo & Camila Russo
June 26, 2025
gm, Defiers!
Today’s big story:
- The FHFA has ordered U.S. mortgage giants to consider crypto in the mortgage process — an important step toward crypto living for consumers
Plus:
- Crypto markets are flat today as U.S. jobless claims data beat expectations
- Galaxy Digital reveals oversubscribed $175M fund for early-stage web3 investments
- Barclays to ban its credit card holders from buying crypto starting tomorrow
- Private credit leads tokenized real-world asset boom, new research shows
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- The Stellar Development Roadmap Paves Way for Expansion and Network Scalability [SPONSORED]
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Accepting Crypto for Mortgage Eligibility Is an Important Step — But We’re Still a Ways from Pure Crypto Living
At The Defiant we have always believed finance will move on-chain, and a proposal for the U.S.’s largest housing market entities to accept crypto in mortgage applications is one more important step in that direction.
Yesterday, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) ordered Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to draft formal proposals for counting crypto reserves in single-family mortgage underwriting. Under the directive, borrowers with verifiable crypto balances on U.S.-regulated centralized exchanges can list those holdings as part of their required reserves, without first converting to dollars. The government entities must propose eligible coin lists, custodial standards, and volatility buffers before implementation takes effect.
Crypto holders have already been using digital assets to buy homes for years. About 1% of homebuyers in 2023–2024 used crypto proceeds, according to the National Association of Realtors survey. There have also been fintechs and CeFi platforms enabling crypto-backed mortgages.
- Milo pioneered pure crypto-collateral mortgages, surpassing $65 million in Bitcoin- and Ether-backed loan volume by February 2025 .
- Ledn has originated over $9 billion in USD loans secured by BTC since 2018, offering instant approvals at up to 50% loan-to-value, and preserving on-chain exposure.
- SALT Lending, live since 2016, locks BTC, ETH or stablecoins as collateral for up to 70% LTV cash loans funded in 24-48 hours.
Though it’s unclear how much of the capital from SALT and Ledn loans has been used to buy property, these projects have provided a viable alternative to do so. Of course, DeFi users have also long been able to collateralize their funds in lending protocols to buy property. The difference between DeFi lending versus CeFi is that these loans are overcollateralized, but users don’t have to go through identity verification, and access to cash is as fast as the given smart contracts get their on-chain confirmations.
If Fannie and Freddie formally embrace crypto, these boutique, crypto-native offerings could graduate to the big leagues. Home loans channeled through GSE-backed securities typically carry lower rates and 30-year terms.
Crypto-backed mortgages would shed their premiums and gain access to pension-fund-scale capital. Standardized guidelines could also smooth volatility fears, reducing margin calls and liquidation risk that currently hamstring private crypto lenders.
This push dovetails with other mainstream crypto wins. Last month, the OCC clarified that banks may custody and execute crypto-asset trades for customers. Just this week, Fed Chair Powell also reiterated remarks from earlier this year that U.S. banks can serve crypto firms as customers, continuing to reverse the anti-crypto policies of so-called Operation Choke Point 2.0.
Payments giants are rolling out stablecoin rails, Mastercard now supports end-to-end stablecoin transactions, from wallets to merchant checkouts, and Visa’s pilot lets issuers settle transactions in USDC.
On the consumer side, there’s been a proliferation of crypto credit cards for spending and rewards — and, most recently, Chainlink’s integration with Mastercard, which enables on-chain crypto purchases. It’s getting easier and easier to simply stay in crypto, and not have to use fiat.
But we’re not 100% there yet. You can now use crypto to pay at millions of merchants, soon you’ll be able to use it to get a mortgage, but — you still can’t yet pay your taxes with it, and most employees won’t pay salaries in crypto, even though many major payroll processors offer the option, which is a great start.
Until governments globally accept tax payments in stablecoins and employers offer paycheck crypto-routing, pure crypto living, owning, earning, spending and taxing on-chain, remains just out of reach. But today’s crypto mortgage proposal shows that reality is getting closer and closer.
With love,
Cami, founder of The Defiant
📈 Markets in the last 24 hrs:
| TICKER | VALUE | 24H | |
|---|---|---|---|
 | Bitcoin | $107,530 | 0.08 % |
 | Ethereum | $2,431.84 | 0.47 % |
 | XRP | $2.12 | -3.07 % |
 | BNB | $646.79 | 0.24 % |
 | Solana | $142.19 | -1.06 % |
 MessariPortals | MINDSHARE Rank | MINDSHARE % Change (7d) |
|---|---|---|
 Solana SOL | 6  | 41.55% |
 Avalanche AVAX | 20 | 28.95% |
 TRON TRX | 8  | -19.81% |
| Powered by Messari Portals | ||
This is the news that mattered in the past 24 hrs
- Crypto markets are mostly flat today, with Bitcoin trading near $107K, following better than expected U.S. jobless claims data; investors remain cautious given uncertainty from the U.S. Fed around rate cuts, as well as the ongoing geopolitical tensions in the Middle East.
- Galaxy Digital announced that it has closed its first externally raised venture fund at $175 million, exceeding its $150 million target; the fund will focus on early-stage firms building on-chain apps and infra.
- At a time when most banks are embracing crypto, Barclays told customers that it will ban “crypto-currency [sic]” purchases via its credit card, the Barclaycard, starting tomorrow, June 27; the banking giant cited crypto asset volatility, which it said could lead to clients “finding themselves in debt they can’t afford to repay.”
- Private credit is now the largest sector of the tokenized real-world asset market, which is up 380% since 2022, per a new report from blockchain oracle RedStone.
🎬WATCH
In the latest episode of The Defiant Podcast, Cami spoke with Emin Gün Sirer, CEO and Founder of Ava Labs. They discuss the growth of gaming on Avalanche, how the chain compares to other top Layer 1s, and the role of stablecoins and central banks in Avalanche’s ecosystem.
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