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Better Home & Finance, Coinbase to offer mortgage backed by cryptocurrencies

Prospective homebuyers who have invested in certain cryptocurrencies will be able to use their holdings as collateral to fund their down payment on a home as part of a new mortgage offering.

Real estate services company Better Home & Finance Holding Co. plans to roll out the crypto-backed mortgage sometime in the next three months in a partnership with crypto trading platform Coinbase, the companies said in a press release Thursday.

“Better was founded to make homeownership more accessible for all Americans, and this partnership with Coinbase introduces a new pathway to realizing the American Dream for the 52 million Americans who own digital assets,” said Vishal Garg, Better’s CEO, said in the release.

Use of cryptocurrency for buying a home remains generally limited. Among the respondents in a National Association of Realtors survey of people who bought a home between July 2024 and June 2025, only 1% of those who made a down payment said they used proceeds from the sale of crypto.

However, the crypto-backed mortgage from Better would not require borrowers to sell their crypto investments to fund their down payment. Instead, borrowers who qualify for the mortgage would only have to pledge such holdings and transfer them to Coinbase as collateral for their down payment.

This allows the crypto investor to not have to lose out on potential future gains in the value of their crypto the way they would if they sold their holdings for cash.

Should their crypto drop in value, the mortgage terms remain unchanged and no additional collateral is required, the companies noted in the release. However, borrowers’ crypto collateral would be at risk of liquidation if they fail to make their mortgage payments for 60 days.

The only type of cryptocurrencies that borrowers will be able to offer up as collateral for Better’s crypto-back mortgage are Bitcoin and USDC, a type of cryptocurrency typically bought and sold for $1, the companies said.

Better noted that the crypto-backed mortgage is “designed in accordance with Fannie Mae guidelines.” That means they can be guaranteed by the mortgage giant, which makes them eligible for “significantly lower interest rates,” than those of other crypto-backed loans, the companies said.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which have been under government control since the Great Recession, buy mortgages that meet their risk criteria from banks, which helps provide liquidity for the housing market.

Banks seeking to make mortgages that qualify for purchase by the mortgage giants have not typically considered a borrower’s crypto holdings until they were sold, or converted, to dollars.

Last June, the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie and Freddie, ordered the agencies to prepare a proposal for consideration of crypto as an asset for reserves when they assess risks in single-family home loans.

Shares in Better Homes & Finance Holding rose 5.4% Thursday. Coinbase fell 4.3%.

Grandfather recovering from surgery after bison attack at Yellowstone sent him flying

By WTOP Staff
(CNN) — What started as a yearly trip for a grandfather and his grandson turned into a visit to a Montana hospital after a bison attack at Yellowstone National Park.Carl McDaniel, 65, was hospitalized with a broken femur after a bison charged and tossed him into the air Friday evening at the park’s Bridge Bay Campground, according to McDaniel and the National Park Service.He was visiting the park with his 13-year-old grandson when they decided to take a walk after dinner.Along the way, they encountered a large bison that appeared to be rolling around in the dust and was not bothering anyone, McDaniel told CNN.“We were about a hundred yards away,” McDaniel said. “He was not aggressive; he was not having problems and we took some pictures and decided to walk on.”McDaniel and his grandson snapped a quick photo and continued with their walk, video of the encounter shows. At the same time, a truck drove by, and the driver laid on his horn in what appeared to be an attempt to get the bison to move, McDaniel said. There is no audio on the video.The bison then appeared to become agitated and began running toward the pair.“There was little time to decide what to do. At that point, he was within 100 yards; he could be to us in seconds, so I told my grandson to run in one direction and I went the other to try and draw him away,” McDaniel said.The animal then pushed McDaniel with the top of its head, sending him flying into the air before he hit the ground, the grandfather said.“When I was on the ground immobile, unable to move, he was right on top of me. He could have stomped on me, he could have gored me, he could have done almost anything to take my life, and he did not do so,” McDaniel said.After McDaniel hit the ground, photographer Mike MacLeod, who captured the encounter on video, had to step in, he told Cowboy State Daily.“I was really afraid he was going to gore the guy on the ground, so I stopped videotaping and ran at the bison, yelled loud, and was trying to be as big and intimidating as possible,” MacLeod said.After the bison took off, people rushed over to McDaniel, who was in a lot of pain, MacLeod told Cowboy State Daily. Yellowstone EMS arrived soon after, he said.“Park emergency medical personnel responded and transported him to a nearby hospital,” the National Park Service said in confirming the incident in a statement to CNN.This is the second bison attack at Yellowstone this year. A 12-year-old was injured near Mud Volcano on June 26, according to the agency.After Friday’s attack, “all the people that were there were amazing; they were all positive, they were trying to help as best they could,” McDaniel said. A nurse started tending to his leg, while another bystander held his head.He was then transferred to a hospital in Bozeman, a two-hour journey during which he was in intense pain. He said he was grateful for the paramedic who helped him along the way.McDaniel broke his femur, the body’s strongest bone, in four places near his hip and suffered several bruises. He had surgery Sunday and could stand by Monday.“I will be doing physical therapy for the next few days to get to walk, but it was not as catastrophic as it could have been,” McDaniel said.The National Park Service advises visitors to stay at least 25 yards away from bison at all times and to never approach the animals. “If the bison follows you, spray bear spray as you are moving away, and seek cover behind nearby trees or cars,” the agency said.Correction: An earlier version of this story understated how far visitors should stay away from bison. The National Park Service advises visitors to stay at least 25 yards from them.The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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