FHFA Orders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to Develop Crypto Mortgage-Reserve Proposals
The Federal Housing Finance Agency directed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to prepare proposals for recognizing qualifying cryptocurrency holdings as borrower reserves without requiring conversion to U.S. dollars. The order opened a pathway for Bitcoin wealth to be considered in the government-backed mortgage system, but did not itself implement new underwriting rules.
On June 25, 2025, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director William Pulte directed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to develop proposals for considering cryptocurrency holdings in single-family mortgage risk assessments. The order contemplated allowing qualifying digital assets held on U.S.-regulated centralized exchanges to count as financial reserves without requiring borrowers to convert them into U.S. dollars first.
That distinction mattered because mortgage underwriting had generally required cryptocurrency wealth to be converted and documented as cash before it could contribute to a borrower’s qualifying reserves. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac underpin a large share of the U.S. mortgage market, so even a proposal-stage change in their treatment of digital assets had implications far beyond a niche crypto lending product. Bitcoin, as the largest and most widely held cryptocurrency, was an obvious potential beneficiary even though the directive did not name individual assets.
The June order did not immediately change mortgage qualification standards. It instructed the two enterprises to prepare business proposals for FHFA review and required attention to risk controls and the regulated custody environment. The event therefore marked the beginning of a policy pathway rather than final implementation. It nevertheless represented a notable attempt to connect cryptocurrency wealth directly to one of the largest and most conventional consumer-credit systems in the United States.