Fintech company Milo made headlines last year for launching the world's first crypto mortgage products. This offering brought about another real-world utility for crypto tokens, albeit a specialized one. Crypto investors became able to use their hodlings to purchase US real estate. So far, by all accounts, the crypto mortgage product has been a success. Milo reports that it has originated over $10 million in crypto mortgages. In addition to the crypto mortgages, Milo does also offer traditional fiat mortgages. 

So, if you're so inclined, you can get a 30-year fixed rate with Milo. They boast many benefits that come along:

In addition to the crypto loans that were launched in 2022, Milo has just announced last week that crypto-backed loans are now available. Ranging from $10k to $200k, customers can pledge Bitcoin, Ether, and USDC to borrow US dollars. After completing a short application and sending collateral to a trusted custodian to be placed in cold storage, the loans can be secured within hours.

There is evidently a large waitlist of clients wanting these crypto loans. They will be available first in California and Florida, with availability coming to other states later on in the year. "Crypto loans are an essential financial solution when consumers want to hold their crypto for the long run but need dollars today," said Josip Rupena, CEO and Founder of Milo. "Last year Milo launched an innovative crypto mortgage and with everything going on in the ecosystem we felt it was important to help our clients today by making it convenient for them to take out a crypto-backed loan. Many companies filed bankruptcy because they took extreme levels of risk and that's not our philosophy. Simple, safe, and transparency is what we want to deliver."

So what are the drawbacks of crypto mortgages and crypto loans? Some point to the volatile prices of cryptocurrencies, which may cause problems if the value of the collateralized crypto dips below a certain percentage of the loans, whatever the given term is. Should the value of the collateralized crypto go too low, the mortgage customer has to put up additional crypto or else face liquidation. In this case, it seems that stablecoins like USDC may be attractive for crypto mortgage customers.

In addition to crypto mortgages and loans, Milo also offers refinancing via crypto. They certainly do make it seem easy.

Milo has been successful thus far and reports that their crypto mortgage products have done well thus far in their first year of existence. But last year, they offered rates between 3.95% and 5.95% -- will they continue to have a solid customer base with rising interest rates and their crypto mortgage rates now at 8.95%?

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