In an unprecedented policy shift, the Federal Housing Finance Agency on Wednesday ordered government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to draw up plans for treating regulated cryptocurrency holdings as eligible reserves in single-family mortgage underwriting.
The decision, signed by FHFA Director William Pulte, instructs the enterprises “to consider cryptocurrency as an asset for reserves… without conversion to US dollars,” provided the coins are “evidenced and stored on a US-regulated centralized exchange” and subject to haircuts for volatility.
The order must clear each government sponsored enterprise’s board and then return to the FHFA for final approval.
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Pulte amplified the directive on X, saying he had “ordered the Great Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to prepare their businesses to count cryptocurrency as an asset for a mortgage,” framing the move as part of President Donald Trump’s bid to make the United States “the crypto capital of the world.”  
The two GSEs currently back about half of America’s $13 trillion residential mortgage market, so admitting crypto-denominated reserves could meaningfully expand borrower eligibility even as it exposes the housing system to sharply different risk dynamics. 
Bitcoin’s 30-day historical volatility frequently runs four to five times that of the S&P 500, with spikes above 70% annualized during stress periods. The directive tackles these risk factors by demanding “additional risk-based adjustments” to any crypto component of borrower reserves.
The mandate also lands amid a fast-tracked push to end Fannie and Freddie’s 17-year conservatorship, raising partisan questions over whether pairing privatization with digital-asset adoption steadies or destabilizes an already fragile housing market.
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