When U.S. mortgage lenders evaluate a borrower’s finances, one question has long drawn a hard line between acceptable and unacceptable wealth: can the asset be recognised without being sold first? For years, cryptocurrency sat on the wrong side of that divide, viewed as volatile, speculative and operationally awkward for underwriting. That boundary is now starting to move.
From February 2026, Newrez, one of the largest mortgage lenders in the United States, plans to recognise certain cryptocurrency holdings when assessing mortgage applications. Bitcoin, Ethereum and selected dollar-backed stablecoins will be eligible to be counted as part of a borrower’s financial profile, without requiring the assets to be sold.
For borrowers who accumulated a meaningful share of their net worth in crypto rather than in equities or property, the change is less about novelty than access. Selling digital assets to qualify for a mortgage can trigger tax liabilities, force investors out of long-term positions or lock in prices at the wrong moment. Newrez’s approach aims to remove that friction while preserving the core discipline of mortgage credit: verifiable assets, predictable payments and controlled risk.
What Newrez is offering — and what it is not
Despite headlines about “crypto mortgages”, the programme itself is deliberately narrow. Newrez is not allowing homes to be purchased in Bitcoin, nor is it offering loans denominated in cryptocurrency. Monthly payments, interest and closing costs remain strictly in U.S. dollars, and borrowers are not pledging crypto as collateral in the traditional sense.
Instead, crypto holdings may be recognised during underwriting, in a way that broadly mirrors how lenders already treat brokerage accounts or other financial assets. The policy will apply within Newrez’s non-agency Smart Series mortgage products, which sit outside the government-backed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac framework. That distinction is crucial. Non-agency loans give lenders greater flexibility in how assets and income are evaluated, but they typically involve higher interest rates, more documentation and closer scrutiny of risk. This is a controlled adjustment within a segment designed to handle complexity, not a rewrite of mainstream U.S. mortgage rules.
Why the timing matters
The decision comes at a moment when affordability remains strained across the U.S. housing market. With 30-year fixed mortgage rates still above 6 percent, down payments and verified reserves play a much larger role in determining who qualifies than they did during the era of ultra-cheap credit. Expanding the definition of acceptable assets gives lenders a way to approve financially strong borrowers without loosening credit standards or stretching debt-to-income ratios.
Newrez executives frame the move as a response to structural change in household balance sheets. Crypto ownership is no longer marginal, particularly among younger professionals and entrepreneurs entering their prime home-buying years with wealth concentrated outside traditional savings or equity portfolios. For lenders competing in a crowded market, continuing to ignore that pool of assets increasingly looks less like caution and more like a strategic blind spot.
How crypto is likely to be treated in underwriting
Recognition does not mean equivalence. Cryptocurrency is volatile by design, and that volatility will shape how it is counted. In practice, crypto assets are expected to be verified through regulated platforms or custodians, discounted relative to cash or traditional securities, and subject to limits on how much can be applied toward reserve or qualification requirements. A borrower holding $300,000 in Bitcoin (≈ €258,000) should not expect it to be treated the same as $300,000 in cash, and even dollar-backed stablecoins are unlikely to be counted on a one-to-one basis.
This reflects a broader underwriting logic that already exists in mortgage finance. Assets that can swing sharply in value or face liquidity constraints under stress are treated conservatively. The aim is not to eliminate crypto’s risk, but to quantify it in a way that fits within mortgage risk models rather than sitting entirely outside them.
Expert signals: cautious integration, not a leap of faith
Newrez’s leadership has described the initiative as an evolution rather than a disruption. Executives argue that as institutional participation in crypto markets has expanded, lenders can no longer treat digital assets as unquantifiable or informal wealth. At the same time, the risks are well understood. Sharp price swings, regulatory uncertainty and questions around liquidity during market stress all limit how far crypto can be pushed into mainstream mortgage finance.
Industry observers note that keeping the programme within non-agency lending reflects that awareness. It allows Newrez to accommodate crypto without forcing government-backed systems, securitisation markets or conservative investors to absorb risks they are not prepared to price. In effect, crypto is being accommodated, not embraced.
Why Newrez can move first — and what changes next
Scale and structure matter. Newrez ranks among the largest U.S. mortgage originators by volume, giving any underwriting change practical significance rather than symbolic value. By rolling the policy out within its own product range rather than waiting for broader regulatory alignment, the lender can test demand, monitor performance and adjust standards without exposing the wider system.
For borrowers with significant digital-asset holdings, the immediate benefit is optionality. Crypto no longer has to be sold simply to be acknowledged. For the mortgage system, the shift is more subtle but potentially more important: digital assets are being reframed as countable wealth, albeit imperfect, discounted and tightly controlled. What does not change is the core logic of mortgage lending. Income must still be verifiable, payments must still be affordable and risk must still be priced.
Newrez’s experiment does not turn crypto into housing collateral. It tests whether modern balance sheets — increasingly split between traditional and digital assets — can be assessed without forcing borrowers into unnecessary liquidation. If it works, it could quietly redraw how wealth is defined in U.S. housing finance — not by changing the rules, but by changing what counts.
