The U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), which oversees mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, has directed them to develop a proposal to treat crypto as an eligible asset for mortgage risk assessment.
The move has been described as a “defining moment” for Bitcoin’s institutional adoption by Strategy co-founder Michael Saylor.
Cryptocurrency holdings will be considered as part of a borrower’s reserves, and there will be no need to convert them into U.S. dollars.
In order to be eligible, such crypto assets have to be stored on U.S.-regulated centralized exchanges of the likes of Kraken and Coinbase. The borrower is supposed to provide proof of ownership and storage.
The crypto assets must comply with existing US laws (anti-money laundering, know-your-customer requirements, and so on).
Fannie and Freddie will have to mitigate various risks, such as excessive volatility.
Their plans will have to be submitted to the FHFA for final approval.
“Bitcoin is pristine collateral. And now it can be counted as an asset when applying for a mortgage,” Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley commented on the X social media platform.
Bill Pulte, director of the FHFA, says that the move is meant to make the U.S. “the crypto capital of the world.”
As reported by U.Today, Pulte is a long-time proponent of the leading cryptocurrency. Back in 2020, he noted that Wall Street was finally warming up to the leading cryptocurrency.
The recent order issued by the agency marks a huge milestone for institutional acceptance of cryptocurrencies.
