Trump administration moves to count crypto as a federal mortgage asset
The move, signed by FHFA Director William J. Pulte on Wednesday, signals a new era of crypto integration into traditional financial infrastructure — this time within the core of American home lending.
The order directs both housing finance giants to develop proposals that include digital assets — without requiring borrowers to liquidate them into U.S. dollars prior to a loan closing.
Pulte said in a post on X that the move aligns with President Donald Trump's vision "to make the United States the crypto capital of the world."
Historically, cryptocurrency has been excluded from underwriting frameworks due to volatility, regulatory uncertainty, and the inability to easily verify reserves. This directive changes that.
The decision comes at a time of increasing institutional embrace of crypto across banking, payments, and federal policy.
"Cryptocurrency is an emerging asset class that may offer an opportunity to build wealth outside of the stock and bond markets," the order states, acknowledging crypto's growing role in household financial portfolios.
The directive restricts consideration to digital assets that are stored on U.S.-regulated, centralized exchanges and can be clearly evidenced. It also requires Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to develop internal adjustments to account for crypto's market volatility and ensure that any risk-weighted reserves comprised of crypto do not compromise underwriting standards.
Under the directive, both enterprises must submit their assessment proposals to the boards of directors for approval and then to the FHFA for final review.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were put under government control in September 2008 as entities that are known as government-sponsored enterprises, or GSEs.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Axios
16 minutes ago
- Axios
Blue-collar revenge: The things AI can't do are making a comeback
AI is supposed to displace millions of workers in the coming years — but when your toilet won't flush at 2 am, you're not going to call ChatGPT. Why it matters: The reshaping of the American economy promises to offer a kind of revenge for the blue-collar laborer, as white-collar workers become largely dispensable, but the need for skilled trades only grows. The big picture: Companies are already boasting of saving hundreds of millions of dollars a year by using AI instead of humans. The stock market rewards are too enticing for the C-suite to ignore. But ask those same executives who's going to run the wiring for their data centers, or who's putting the roof on the building, and just how well those skilled technicians are getting paid. It's become a key Trump administration economic talking point: Blue-collar wages are rising faster now than at the start of any other administration going back to Nixon. Driving the news: A recent Microsoft paper analyzing the most "AI-proof" jobs generated a list of the work most and least vulnerable to the rise of the LLM. The 40 most-vulnerable jobs (translators, historians, sales reps, etc), basically all office work, employ about 11 million people. The 40 least-vulnerable jobs (dredge operators, roofers, etc.), just about all manual labor, employ around 5.5 million. All those extra folks have to go somewhere. What they're saying: "We've been telling kids for 15 years to code. 'Learn to code!' we said. Yeah, well, AI's coming for the coders. They're not coming for the welders. They're not coming for the plumbers. They're not coming for the steamfitters or the pipe fitters or the HVACs. They're not coming for the electricians," Mike Rowe, the TV host and skilled-trades philanthropist, said at Sen. Dave McCormick's (R-Pa.) AI summit last month. "There is a clear and present freak-out going on right now," Rowe said, as everyone from politicians to CEOs recognizes just how bad they need tradespeople to keep the economy running. Yes, but: While the AI boom will create lots of jobs for skilled trades, eventually there'll be less demand to build more data centers, which may in turns sap demand for those tradespeople too. The intrigue: There's already a labor shortage in many of these blue-collar professions, one that AI will, ironically, only make worse (think the electricians for the data centers, for example). Factories alone are short about 450,000 people a month, per the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM). "We're really talking about high-tech, 21st Century, rewarding, well-paying jobs," Jay Timmons, the CEO of the NAM, tells Axios. "Manufacturers are really embracing what's coming, and they accept the responsibility." Training is the answer, but that will require a large-scale, national effort —not just for up-and-coming students, but for mid-career folks forced into a pivot. "Everybody needs these roles, they're high-security roles," says Carolyn Lee, president of the NAM-affiliated Manufacturing Institute. She points, for example, to a program already in 16 states to train maintenance technicians to keep factories running — precisely the kind of job people like Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick have said are the future of the workforce. Students in an early cohort of that program, on average, were earning $95,000 a year within five years of graduating. One of the challenges, Timmons notes, is selling that to people who may not understand how lucrative these careers can be: "You have an economy-wide perception problem."
Yahoo
25 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Charting the Global Economy: US Job Market Wavers in Cue for Fed
(Bloomberg) -- The US labor market is wavering after a slowdown in economic growth during the first half of the year — implications of heightened uncertainty tied to trade policy. The World's Data Center Capital Has Residents Surrounded An Abandoned Art-Deco Landmark in Buffalo Awaits Revival We Should All Be Biking Along the Beach San Francisco in Talks With Vanderbilt for Downtown Campus Seeking Relief From Heat and Smog, Cities Follow the Wind President Donald Trump unveiled a slew of new tariffs that boosted the average US rate on goods from across the world, forging ahead with his effort to reshape international commerce and bolster American manufacturing. The baseline rates for many trading partners remain unchanged at 10% from the duties Trump imposed in April. Signs of a sluggish job market and the risk of a reacceleration in inflation due to higher import duties are dueling forces dividing Federal Reserve officials over the path of interest rates. In the wake of a weak jobs report on Friday, Treasury yields declined on bets the Fed will lower interest rates as soon as September after keeping them unchanged this week. In Canada, central bankers left interest rates unchanged, while keeping the door open to more cuts if the economy weakens and inflation pressures stay in check. The Bank of Japan also held the line on borrowing costs. Here are some of the charts that appeared on Bloomberg this week on the latest developments in the global economy, markets and geopolitics: US Job growth slowed sharply over the past three months and the unemployment rate rose in July, showing the labor market is shifting into a lower gear amid widespread economic uncertainty. Not only is job growth cooling markedly and unemployment rising, it's harder for unemployed Americans to get a job and wage gains have largely stalled. That poses further risks to a slowdown in consumer and business spending that's already underway. Economic growth moderated through the first half of the year as consumers tempered their spending after a late-2024 splurge and companies adjusted to frequently shifting trade policy. While gross domestic product increased at a solid 3% annual rate, final sales to private domestic purchasers, a narrower metric of demand, rose at the slowest since the end of 2022. Factory activity contracted in July at the fastest pace in nine months, dragged down by a faster decline in employment as orders continued to shrink. A measure of employment slid to the lowest level in more than five years, suggesting producers are stepping up efforts to control costs amid higher tariffs and softer demand. Europe The euro-area economy unexpectedly eked out growth in the second quarter, benefiting from better-than-predicted performances in France and Spain. Gross domestic product increased 0.1%. While the results suggest some resilience in the 20-nation bloc at a time of heightened uncertainty, they mask economic contractions in Germany and Italy, the region's biggest and third-largest members. As European Union leaders work through the consequences of their new trading arrangement with the US, they are confronting the bitter reality of just how far they have fallen. Even with the unpalatable terms, the EU may struggle to deliver on its new commitments to the US. Asia Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda kept investors guessing over the timing of his next interest rate hike with comments that cooled expectations of a near-term move and weakened the yen. The BOJ kept the overnight call rate at 0.5% at the end of a two-day policy meeting in a widely expected unanimous vote. China's top leadership emphasized its determination to reduce excess competition in the economy, with President Xi Jinping endorsing a campaign targeting one major cause of deflation and tensions with trade partners. Trump said Thursday he would impose a 25% tariff on India's exports, before following through a day later, and threatened an additional penalty over the country's energy purchases from Russia. India is weighing options to placate the White House, including boosting US imports, and has ruled out immediate retaliation, according to people familiar with the matter. Emerging Markets The global trade war that Trump unleashed from the Rose Garden that afternoon shook investor confidence in the US economy so much that it sparked a stampede out of the dollar. Much of that money has flowed into other developed countries but billions have washed up in developing nations, reviving a market that for more than a decade had been relegated to a mere afterthought in investing circles. Chile's economic activity unexpectedly fell for the second month in June as a plunge in mining offset gains across other sectors in one of Latin America's richest nations. Mexico's quarterly economic growth came in higher than expected in the three months through June as manufacturing and services powered Latin America's second-largest economy despite US tariffs. World At an average of 15%, the world is still facing some of the steepest US tariffs since the 1930s, roughly six times higher than they were a year ago. Trump's latest volley outlined minimum 10% baseline levies, with rates of 15% or more for countries with trade surpluses with the US. The months of negotiations, marked by Trump's social-media threats against US allies and foes alike, ended with new rates that were largely in line or lower than those on April 2. The world economy will keep weakening and remains vulnerable to trade shocks even though it is showing some resilience to Trump's tariffs, the International Monetary Fund said. Its updated projections are slightly better than those in April, but largely reflect distortions such as front-loading in anticipation of tariffs. In addition to the US, Canada and Japan, central bankers in Pakistan, Georgia, Singapore, Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Malawi and Eswatisi held interest rates steady. Chile, South Africa and Mozambique cut rates. Ghana lowered borrowing costs by the most on record. --With assistance from Nazmul Ahasan, Vinícius Andrade, Maya Averbuch, Ruchi Bhatia, Matthew Burgess, Katia Dmitrieva, Toru Fujioka, Selcuk Gokoluk, Philip J. Heijmans, William Horobin, John Liu, Yujing Liu, Matthew Malinowski, Mark Niquette, Swati Pandey, Jana Randow, Augusta Saraiva, Zoe Schneeweiss, Shruti Srivastava, Jorge Valero and Fran Wang. How Podcast-Obsessed Tech Investors Made a New Media Industry Everyone Loves to Hate Wind Power. Scotland Found a Way to Make It Pay Off It's Not Just Tokyo and Kyoto: Tourists Descend on Rural Japan Russia Builds a New Web Around Kremlin's Handpicked Super App Cage-Free Eggs Are Booming in the US, Despite Cost and Trump's Efforts ©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
Yahoo
38 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Bill Maher says he was wrong about Trump's tariffs — why the comedian is suddenly walking back his calls for catastrophe
Moneywise and Yahoo Finance LLC may earn commission or revenue through links in the content below. Love him or hate him, Bill Maher isn't shy about eating his own words. On an episode of his Club Random podcast, the comedian says he was wrong about President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs. 'Tariffs. Now, I remember, I, along with probably most people, were saying at the beginning, 'Oh, you know, by the 4th of July the economy was going to be tanked by then.' And I was kind of, like, 'Well, that seems right to me.' But that didn't happen,' Maher said in a clip posted July 28. 'The truth is, I don't know what [Trump's] strategy is. But look, the stock market is at record highs. I know not everybody lives by the stock market, but I also drive around, I don't see a country in a depression at all — I see people out there just living their lives. And I would have thought — and I've got to own it — that these tariffs were going to sink this economy by this time. And they didn't.' Don't miss Thanks to Jeff Bezos, you can now become a landlord for as little as $100 — and no, you don't have to deal with tenants or fix freezers. Here's how I'm 49 years old and have nothing saved for retirement — what should I do? Don't panic. Here are 5 of the easiest ways you can catch up (and fast) Want an extra $1,300,000 when you retire? Dave Ramsey says this 7-step plan 'works every single time' to kill debt, get rich in America — and that 'anyone' can do it Many experts were — and several remain — critical of Trump's trade policies. Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers called Trump's tariffs 'a self-inflicted wound on the American economy,' while Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman said they 'create an impossible environment for business.' To be sure, the uncertainty surrounding tariffs did rattle Wall Street. Trump's first 100 days were the worst start for stocks under a president since the Nixon era. But they've since bounced back, and as Maher alluded to, major indices like the S&P 500 and Nasdaq have hit new all-time highs. The blunt reality? While Trump's tariffs may have consequences — particularly on consumer prices — the U.S. economy remains a global powerhouse. That enduring strength is why investing legend Warren Buffett has long urged investors to stay optimistic about America's future. As Buffett wrote in his 2022 letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders: 'I have yet to see a time when it made sense to make a long-term bet against America. And I doubt very much that any reader of this letter will have a different experience in the future.' Here's a look at two simple ways to bet on America. Own a slice of America — the Buffett way For Buffett, betting on the U.S. is a no-brainer — thanks to his unwavering faith in the resilience and growth of American businesses. 'American business — and consequently a basket of stocks — is virtually certain to be worth far more in the years ahead,' Buffett wrote in his 2016 letter to shareholders. You don't need to be a stock-picking expert to follow Buffett's playbook. His advice to individual investors is as simple as it is enduring: 'In my view, for most people, the best thing to do is own the S&P 500 index fund,' he famously stated. This straightforward approach gives investors exposure to 500 of America's largest companies across various industries, providing diversified exposure without the need for constant monitoring or active trading. The beauty of this approach is its accessibility — anyone, regardless of wealth, can take advantage of it. Even small amounts can grow over time with tools like Acorns, a popular app that automatically invests your spare change. Signing up for Acorns takes just minutes: link your cards, and Acorns will round up each purchase to the nearest dollar, investing the difference — your spare change — into a diversified portfolio. With Acorns, you can invest in an S&P 500 ETF with as little as $5 — and, if you sign up today, Acorns will add a $20 bonus to help you begin your investment journey. Read more: BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has an important message for the next wave of American retirees — Invest in US real estate The U.S. is currently facing a significant housing shortage. A recent Zillow analysis estimated the housing shortage to be 4.7 million homes. Even Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has acknowledged the severity of the issue. 'The real issue with housing is that we have had, and are on track to continue to have, not enough housing,' he stated in September 2024. For investors, the housing supply gap presents a unique opportunity to invest in America. Housing demand isn't going away — regardless of who's in the White House, people will always need a place to live. In fact, Buffett has often pointed to U.S. real estate as a prime example of a productive, income-generating asset. In 2022, Buffett stated that if you offered him '1% of all the apartment houses in the country' for $25 billion, he would 'write you a check.' Of course, you don't need billions to benefit from real estate investing. Crowdfunding platforms like Arrived offer an easier way to get exposure to this income-generating asset class. Backed by world-class investors like Jeff Bezos, Arrived allows you to invest in shares of rental homes with as little as $100, all without the hassle of mowing lawns, fixing leaky faucets or handling difficult tenants. The process is simple: browse a curated selection of homes that have been vetted for their appreciation and income potential. Once you find a property you like, select the number of shares you'd like to purchase, and then sit back as you start receiving any positive rental income distributions from your investment. Another option is First National Realty Partners (FNRP), which allows accredited investors to diversify their portfolio through grocery-anchored commercial properties without taking on the responsibilities of being a landlord. With a minimum investment of $50,000, investors can own a share of properties leased by national brands like Whole Foods, Kroger and Walmart, which provide essential goods to their communities. Thanks to Triple Net (NNN) leases, accredited investors are able to invest in these properties without worrying about tenant costs cutting into their potential returns. Simply answer a few questions — including how much you would like to invest — to start browsing their full list of available properties. What to read next Robert Kiyosaki warns of a 'Greater Depression' coming to the US — with millions of Americans going poor. But he says these 2 'easy-money' assets will bring in 'great wealth'. How to get in now Here are 5 simple ways to grow rich with real estate if you don't want to play landlord. And you can even start with as little as $10 Rich, young Americans are ditching the stormy stock market — here are the alternative assets they're banking on instead Here are 5 'must have' items that Americans (almost) always overpay for — and very quickly regret. How many are hurting you? Stay in the know. Join 200,000+ readers and get the best of Moneywise sent straight to your inbox every week for free. This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
