Key Highlights

  • FHFA Director William Pulte has ordered Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to draft policies recognizing crypto held on U.S.-regulated exchanges as eligible reserves for single-family mortgage underwriting.

  • Borrowers will not need to convert digital assets to U.S. dollars to qualify, but holdings must be custodied on a centralized exchange subject to all applicable U.S. laws.

  • This marks the first formal step by a major U.S. housing regulator to integrate cryptocurrency into the mortgage underwriting framework that backs trillions of dollars in home loans.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency has directed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to develop proposals for treating cryptocurrency held on U.S.-regulated exchanges as qualifying reserve assets in single-family mortgage risk assessments. The directive, issued by FHFA Director William Pulte, eliminates the existing requirement for borrowers to convert digital holdings into U.S. dollars before those assets can count toward mortgage qualification. Details of the order confirm it applies to assets custodied on centralized exchanges subject to all applicable federal and state laws.

Under current rules, crypto assets that have not been converted to fiat cannot factor into a borrower's qualification for any mortgage backed by the two government-sponsored entities, which together underwrite the vast majority of U.S. residential mortgages. The FHFA directive changes that by explicitly instructing both GSEs to draft risk frameworks that treat verified cryptocurrency reserves as functionally equivalent to traditional financial reserves, with specific volatility mitigations and caps on the proportion of reserves that crypto can constitute.

Legal analysts reviewing the directive note that the practical effect could be substantial. According to an analysis by Alston, borrowers with significant Bitcoin or other digital asset holdings but limited fiat liquidity have historically been unable to leverage those assets in homebuying. The new framework would directly address that gap, opening the mortgage market to a broader segment of crypto-native wealth.

The move aligns with a broader shift in how U.S. regulators are treating digital assets as legitimate financial instruments. Mortgage lender Newrez had already announced a crypto-backed mortgage program at the end of 2025, signaling growing appetite from private lenders. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have not yet published finalized policies in response to the directive, though an FHFA spokesperson confirmed the rulemaking process is actively underway.