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One thing about holding digital assets like bitcoin is the fact that there are still limited use cases. Since BTC is still not a legal way to pay for things in most jurisdictions, Despite having millions in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, investors can still find themselves extremely limited in what they can purchase without having to first convert their holdings to crypto.
Things like housing and cars are a huge part of individuals’ lives but without being able to purchase things without switching to fiat, which triggers a taxable event, users cannot spend their holdings on the things that matter. This is what a Miami-based FinTech called Milo is looking to address. The company brings crypto mortgages to users, where they can use their crypto holdings as collateral.
Get A Mortgage Using Bitcoin
In a press release posted on Tuesday, Milo announced that it would be allowing customers to take out mortgages against their crypto holdings. This makes it the first crypto mortgage offering a financial solution that crypto users are able to leverage their digital assets to purchase real estate. The financial technology company said that users will be able to pledge their bitcoin in exchange for a 30-year low-interest-rate crypto mortgage.
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Milo’s solution will enable clients to diversify their investment portfolios into real estate without having to worry about converting their holdings to fiat currencies. With bitcoin, customers are not required to have any dollar for a downpayment. Instead, their bitcoin holdings will serve as collateral of sorts, enabling them to secure a mortgage much faster than they would in a traditional setting.
Josip Rupena, CEO and Founder of Milo, expressed that Milo is keeping up with the needs of customers, who are demanding more innovative ways to be able to use their crypt holdings.
“Clients expect us to come up with innovative solutions to extend credit to millions of great consumers,” said Rupena. “The existing ways for crypto consumers to access home credit has left them with unintended tax liabilities of selling for a down payment or worse the opportunity cost of seeing their crypto increase in value. There are countless stories of people buying property with bitcoin proceeds only to see it increase in value and be worth millions more.”
Why This Is Important
What Milo is doing with the crypto mortgages is not only novel, but it is important for a space like crypto which still struggles with mainstream acceptance. The company is yet to make public how much bitcoin will be required to secure a mortgage. However, Milo notes that it has already granted loans to parties who are involved in the early-access stage of the product offering.
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The company expects the service to be available to more customers in the coming months and broader service going forward. There is currently a waiting list of customers looking to get a mortgage with the company using their bitcoin.
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“This is an exciting time for the crypto and mortgage industries. With our new crypto mortgage, we can expand our offerings to consumers that were previously denied by other banking firms just for having crypto. We have an opportunity to make sure that doesn’t happen anymore and their bitcoin wealth can now help them buy a property,” Rupena said.
Featured image from Ventures Africa, chart from TradingView.com