Coinbase and Better Enable Homebuyers to Borrow Against Their Bitcoin or USDC

With a crypto-backed mortgage originated and serviced by Better, borrowers get a standard Fannie Mae mortgage on the home as well as a second loan that is secured by cryptocurrency and funds the cash down payment, Coinbase said in a Thursday (March 26) blog post.

The borrower’s crypto is held in custody in Better’s Coinbase Prime account for the life of the loan and then returned to them when the loan is repaid, according to the post.

The terms of the loan are not affected by the volatility of the price of bitcoin, the post said.

This solution enables crypto holders to secure a home loan without having to liquidate their crypto holdings, forgo future upside and trigger capital gains taxes, per the post.

The program will accept bitcoin and USDC as collateral at launch. It may add other assets such as ETH and SOL as eligible collateral in the future, according to a frequently asked questions page.

“These new crypto-backed mortgages are the first step in integrating crypto into the core plumbing of the U.S. housing finance system,” Coinbase said in the post. “This is what the Everything Exchange vision looks like in practice: not just trading every asset class onchain, but making those assets usable in the real world.”

In an earlier move, Coinbase announced in January 2025 that it was rolling out bitcoin-backed loans that allow customers to instantly borrow USDC to cover major expenses without selling their bitcoin. The company expanded this offering in November 2025 to allow customers to borrow USDC against their ethereum.

In Better’s own Thursday press release about the new token-backed mortgage program, Better CEO and founder Vishal Garg said this solution is designed to make homeownership more accessible for the 52 million Americans who own digital assets.

“Together, we are taking a major step towards truly democratizing homeownership for hardworking Americans,” Garg said.

Garg founded Better to streamline the mortgage approval process from weeks to minutes, according to the PYMNTS Intelligence report “Expanding Payments Choice Playbook.”