Viral claims on Fannie Mae crypto mortgages run ahead of facts

Claims that Fannie Mae is preparing to roll out crypto-backed mortgages with Coinbase and Better are spreading as if the program were already in motion. But the available public record does not support that version of events. No official Fannie Mae announcement confirming such a product, launch timeline, or partnership with Coinbase and Better was located, and the company’s current selling guide still does not allow cryptocurrency to be counted in its native form for down payments, closing costs, or reserves.

What is confirmed is narrower. In June 2025, Reuters reported that FHFA Director William Pulte ordered Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to begin developing plans to consider cryptocurrency holdings in assessments of single-family mortgage risk. That directive was widely read as the first formal step toward allowing crypto to play a larger role in underwriting, especially for assets held on U.S.-regulated exchanges and subject to volatility controls.

That is still not the same as implementation. Fannie Mae’s current published policy says virtual currency is acceptable only after it has been exchanged into U.S. dollars, documented, and verified at a U.S. or state-regulated financial institution before loan closing. The same section also says virtual currency may not be used for earnest money on the sales contract.

Freddie Mac’s guide remains similar in practice. Its current section on cryptocurrency says any amount of cryptocurrency used as a source of funds for the mortgage transaction must be exchanged for U.S. dollars.

At this stage, the most defensible reading is that FHFA pushed the government-sponsored enterprises to prepare proposals, but Fannie Mae has not yet publicly implemented a crypto-underwriting framework, and no official materials found on Fannie Mae, Coinbase, or Better confirm a joint rollout.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac remain central to the U.S. mortgage market because they buy loans from lenders and package them into mortgage-backed securities, helping set the standards many originators follow. Any change to the treatment of crypto assets in underwriting would therefore matter well beyond a niche lending product. But for now, that change appears to still sit at the proposal stage rather than the market stage.