The Miami-based digital bank Milo announced the launch of a “crypto mortgage” backed by Bitcoin for purchasing real estate in the United States.
“Instead of selling cryptocurrency to pay the fiat mortgage down payment, the product enables using Bitcoin to invest in real estate. Our strategy aligns with yours—keep hodling.”, the company’s site said.
The service is available to residents of the United States and elsewhere.
Interest rate and the minimum loan-to-value ratio are not disclosed. The posting and withdrawal of the digital gold used as collateral affect the financial terms.
When assessing a borrower’s creditworthiness, Milo uses the amount of digital gold held instead of FICO scores.
No down payment is required. The loan has a 30-year term. Tax obligations are assumed to be absent.
Milo has opened a waitlist. The service will be available “in the coming months”. As part of the early access, the digital bank has already issued several mortgage loans.
Another mortgage division of the company, not related to cryptocurrencies, has approved applications worth “millions of dollars” from residents of 63 different countries.
The startup positions itself as a direct lender that has been licensed and audited, with its operations insured.
“Existing mortgage options have left crypto investors with unintended tax obligations [after selling Bitcoin] or, worse, with alternative costs in the form of appreciation in their holdings,” said Milo’s CEO and founder Josip Rupena.
Earlier, in December 2021, the crypto-lending platform Ledn announced the launch of Bitcoin-backed mortgage lending for clients in the United States and Canada. The product’s limit for January–March is expected to exceed $100 million.
Earlier, United Wholesale Mortgage stopped accepting cryptocurrency payments six weeks after launching the program.
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