Cathie Wood predicts ‘once unattainable new home’ demand will spark wealth shift originally appeared on TheStreet.
The mortgage policy in the U.S. could witness a monumental change within the next few months, thanks to a recent development.
On June 25, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) director William Pulte issued an order directing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to consider cryptocurrency as an asset as part of mortgage requests.
Part of the broader crypto adoption agenda of the Trump administration, the directive asks the bodies to formulate mortgage proposals to consider crypto assets for reserves in single-family loan risk assessments.
Industry leaders such as ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood appreciated the move, saying it “could bolster both crypto and housing significantly.”
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However, there is one component of the directive that has divided the crypto community, which is considering crypto assets held only on U.S.-regulated, centralized exchanges.
An X user went @StackingAlpha so far as to call the FHFA’s refusal to consider crypto held in self-custody against the ethos of crypto.
For those unfamiliar, most crypto communities pride themselves on being decentralized and outside the control of centralized intermediaries such as banks or exchanges.
The user asked Wood if those with significant Bitcoin holdings in self-custody would move them to centralized exchanges just to avail themselves of the benefit in mortgage applications.
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Wood responded that those holding Bitcoin for a long time probably have a large part of their net worth in crypto assets. So, she wouldn’t be surprised to see them shifting some of their Bitcoin holdings to the Coinbase (Nasdaq: COIN) crypto exchange so that they can use these funds as collateral in their mortgage applications “for a once unattainable new home.”
While the FHFA’s directive mentions U.S.-regulated centralized exchanges, it doesn’t specify any particular exchange. But Wood mentioned Coinbase as an example in her response.
