From HODL to Home: Bitcoin Backed Loans Meet Mortgages | Bitcoin 2026

What's up everybody? How you doing? I'm really excited about this panel. I'm really happy to be here on the stage with you guys because that's a topic that I personally find very interesting and I also think this is part of the industry that people are most interested in. So I would like to ask you Hunter starting to introduce yourself and tell the audience how Bitcoin found you. >> So my name is Hunter Albright. I'm the chief revenue officer at Salt Lending and Bitcoin found me actually through education. I an adjunct faculty member at the University of Colorado and have a background in systems engineering and actually got asked to teach a course on Bitcoin in 2017 and that took me down the rabbit hole ever since. >> Beautiful. CJ, how about you? Yep. I'm CJ Constantinos, founder and CEO of People's Reserve. And uh I have a history in accounting and finance. And uh I very made a bad decision. I bought in 2019 a house for 100 Bitcoin. Uh that's over $7 million today. And uh I couldn't even get $500,000 for my house. So Bitcoin found me and smacked me upside the head. >> Yeah, sometimes we need the pain to learn. So my name is Leon Wankom. I'm a real estate developer and an author for Bitcoin magazine and my book digital real estate on how Bitcoin is changing real estate investing and development is available for pre-order now. So guys, I would like to ask you the question, what would you define as pristine collateral? Hunter will start with you and how does Bitcoin fit into that framework? So I mean when I think about pristine collateral, it's collateral that you have liquidity in terms of be able to get the value out if you want to sell it. but also collateral that you can take advantage of the value that you've accumulated by sacrificing your investment, your labor, other investment opportunities you accumulated. And I think that's what you know when I think about Bitcoin and pristine sort of collateral, Bitcoin is bringing the tools and the strategies of the ultra wealthy now to everybody. So you don't have to have $50 million and a private sort of banker to be able to accumulate assets, be able to sort of borrow against them and then figure out how to generate income off the investments. And I think that's the unlock that we just now have more sophisticated tools that are opening up more sophisticated strategies for everybody. >> Yes, I like that. >> That that is so well said and there's no reason for me to repeat it. So what I what I'll go with is what makes it pristine collateral. And I think when you look at where the financial system came from, we had gold and it was a good collateral, but we ran into a few problems. And those problems were that it was hard and costly to transport and settle. And we had treasuries and it made it very easy. We had T+ 2, T+ 3, now T+1. And it's electronic and it's easy to settle. You don't have to secure it. You don't have to transport it. And then we took what we learned through that process and we engineered a solution. And that's what humans are best at engineering. And that engineered solution with Bitcoin becoming a pristine collateral says, you know what, I'm going to take the best from gold and I'm going to take the best from cash equivalents and I'm going to combine those together. So I'm going to take this hard to transport and secure and I'm going to introduce trustlessness and a 10-minute block time. send billions of dollars across the world for the cost of pennies with absolute certainty when it's settled on the chain. And then at the same time, you look at the treasury and you say, "Man, what's the problem with this? It settles quickly." Well, you can you can expand the supply infinitely. So, you have collateral dilution. And Bitcoin says, "Well, no, no, no, no. We're not going to deal with that. 21 million and that's it." So, we get the best from gold, we get the best from the cash equivalents, and we have our pristine collateral. CJ, I want to I want to build on on what you said and compare Bitcoin and real estate. If we look at real estate as collateral, the unlock, so to say, is not just the appreciation, but also the cash flow from the perspective of the underwriter or the lender. So, what is the unlock in Bitcoin? What makes Bitcoin fit into that role? So, the the holy grail for traditional finance right now is how do we lower interest rates sustainably? and they're all looking at the same equation and they're saying, "Well, there's a lot of risk and the lenders are are nervous, right? Rates are being raised up. Rates are being it's all stated. We don't know. We're guessing. A small group of men is saying what the price of money is. Probably not a good idea." Well, we look at that equation and we say, "How can we rearrange it to fix this? Can we raise interest rates to lower risk so we can write more loans?" Well, no, you can't because then you don't have affordability. Well, can we lower interest rates to make affordability better? No, you can't because then we have more risk. So, how do we finagle this equation? You can't. You need to change the equation. You need to add a new variable to the equation. And that variable is Bitcoin as a pristine collateral. So, the holy grail is how do we lower interest rates? We introduce pristine collateral which lowers the risk. And when you lower the risk, you can lower the rate because the interest rate, the price of money is not just the supply of money and the demand for loans, it's the risk. So if we address risk, we can fix the problem. And that's the advantage Bitcoin gives us. How do you think uh CG, how do you think it will affect real estate markets? Because when we look at real estate, it's a it's over $300 trillion asset class and um the demand stems from its relative scarcity. So people use it as a store of value, but people also use it as collateral. So now that Bitcoin comes in and Bitcoin is being mixed in into uh mortgage products, how do you think it will affect the real estate market? I I think it can solve for affordability. I mean at People's Reserve, the lowest interest rate that we can write is 3%. That's sofer minus that is the cheapest rate for any cost of capital in the world right now. And how is that possible? Because we are dual collateralizing property title with pristine collateral. And when we reduce risk, we can reduce the rate. And when we can reduce the rate, we can address affordability. So I think I I think and I hope the current administration will see the power of that and and kind of remove some of potential roadblocks so that the agencies can start holding this paper rather than just private credit. >> Hunter, do you want to make a comment? >> Yeah, I was just going to say I mean I I think the flexibility and the innovation that's happening in the industry is exciting in terms of what it's allowing people to do. So at Salt, we are, you know, sort of completing a decade worth of lending against Bitcoin. And I had the team do a little bit analysis to say, okay, what have we learned over the last 10 years from lending, especially around sort of homes and home ownership. And there's been four use cases that have come out. The first one is access. And that people borrow against their Bitcoin because they just need a down payment. they need to be able to um get access to traditional finance when they don't have the cash and they don't want to sell their Bitcoin. Other examples are, you know, founders or if you're living in an international country where you don't have a credit score, borrowing against your Bitcoin can open up that opportunity. The second uh case study or sort of use case has been around uh advantage like if you need to move quickly being able to quickly get cash in 24 hours to be able to take a house off the market or just secure your dream home has been something we've seen a number of customers do. Uh third one is agility. Maybe you need a bridge loan to buy home before your current home sells and that flexibility really helps. And then the last one which I think is consistent with what you guys are talking about generally is then an acceleration like how do I use my Bitcoin to accelerate my wealth building in a way that the the ultra wealthy and sort of the elites have been doing for a long time. And so we see people both borrowing, buying homes with their Bitcoin and then investing in other assets to be able to do income generation, but also buying against homes and then taking out a heliloc to pay off their loan. And now they get a lower cost of capital once they've unlocked or they have ownership of a house. >> I love that point you just made about giving access to liquidity and turning the plebs into the elite, right? that they that if you're closest to the printer, you've been called the cantillionaire, right? Well, you guys, the responsible savers of Bitcoin, the holders of pristine collateral, you are going to be the new cantillionaires. You are going to be have the ability to access the liquidity. And that's what's so exciting about Bitcoin. It's a new frontier. It's a new class that is emerging. Not just an asset class, but a new class of people and ideas and investment strategies. Well, and I think what's interesting about that, and we were talking about this backstage a little bit, is that the innovation is coming from all of you and how you're thinking about combining new tools with traditional tools to get the solution that you want. And I, you know, going back to the conversation around pristine collateral, it's scarce, it's valuable, it's a store of value. We use it as a means of exchange, but it's also providing people optionality uh in a way of combining different systems in a way that hasn't been available before. I want you to tell them what you told me backstage about what they're doing with the digital credit >> with the so at Salt just like strategy is taking the volatility out of fixed income instruments we're building products that are taking out the volatility of lending. So really building towards what you're building as well to no liquidation products. So we have technology that will swap Bitcoin into stablecoin at certain points in your loan and we have a product out called Salt Shield that eliminates the liquidation altogether. No margin calls uh for a feebased program. Again trying to expand the options that people have to choose from to how to ensure your Bitcoin stays your Bitcoin. I was just going to I wanted to throw some inside baseball for the people who came here because we're talking about STRC and the rate you can get on it and arbitrageing what you can get because it's backed by Bitcoin, right? That's the whole point of it. That's what makes it a digital credit. It's fully backed by Bitcoin and therefore it is a derivative of pristine collateral. So at People's Reserve, something that we're working on that's very exciting for us is that we're going to be accepting STRC and SATA as collateral for your Bitcoin mortgage. And if you run the numbers on that, you can end up getting paid to live in your house. And that's a very exciting value proposition. >> Well, and I think that's the other thing it unlocks for people that are interested in taking more control of their own finances is that I often times talk about that we're going I feel like we're going through a shift where we're moving from laborbased income to assetbased income. And if you can learn how to make that shift and have your money work for you like sort of for centuries the ultra wealthy have shown, then we all can create more financial freedom and flexibility based on the back of Bitcoin. >> 100%. Bitcoin working as digital real estate. I think that is a great use case and cuz I know salt has been in industry for over a decade and I also know that you have vast experience with Treadfi. So we talked a lot about the the benefits that Bitcoin has for the borrower. Now I would like to know from the lender side what are the benefits that Bitcoin as collateral has for the lender. >> So I think it goes back to a topic that CJ was talking on is really risk management. One of the things around traditional I come from a background in of secured lending against credit cards uh back in the day going all the way through different formats of unsecured lending and so really trying to understand how am I going to get paid from an a monthly payment as well as a principal repayment. Um, and Bitcoin changes the game. Like being able to have access to collateral with the markets we have in terms of the daily volume and the value, it really helps us as sort of lenders be able to acquire capital at really attractive rates. Um, and ensure that we don't have loss on any loans for any of the lenders that we get capital from because of the liquidity of the the strength of the asset. And how do you envision the emergence of Bitcoin as a global collateral layer? When do you think that will happen? And how do you envision that? I I think it's happening now. Like I've traveled the world over the last sort of 12 to 18 months talking to people about how they use Bitcoin, what is the use case? And the some of the stats from the US is right, the median age of the firsttime home buyers now is over 40. And of all the new home buyers in the United States, only 1ifth are first-time buyers. And so it is increasingly getting difficult for people to figure out how to get into a home. And whether you think about a home as an asset and that where you want to store wealth and you know sort of I'm Gen X and for my generation and my parents generation like home ownership was financial literacy. That's how you learned about it. you sort of started to build wealth and that's being that sort of opportunity is being pushed out. So what do you do in between there? And I think Bitcoin provides a solution and that's consistently globally. I think this average age of first-time home buyership of ownership over being 40 or above is is pretty consistent across the world. >> Yeah. I I would say we've done a pretty good job over the last decade of capturing the gold bugs, the hard money guys, the sound money people, the Austrian economics, like everybody who is in that philosophy is pretty much in the market. So for me, what I see is a new wave of adoption and it's based off of what you just said, which is this solves my problem, right? when the when the when the economy is saying, "Look, I'm going to turn 40 years old by the time I can buy my first home. How am I supposed to have kids? Like, how am I supposed to start a family?" Right? No wonder Elon is telling us we don't have a population problem. We have a depopulation problem because people can't get started. They It's a home is the hierarchy of needs. It's the number one thing you need to feel comfortable in starting your family and progressing. And we take that knowledge and we leverage it in our Bitcoin mortgage reserve product where you only need 20% of the purchase price of the home to get the financing. But the exciting part from the lender's perspective is that in that product, we split a portion of the upside with you. So there's, you know, in our self-repaying mortgage, we don't split any of the upside. At the end of the loan, you get 100% of your collateral back. But if you haven't been saving in Bitcoin for a long time and you want to make a quick move, you can get 20% of that price. You can get your keys today and then it still works for you. We call an equity engine. So instead of your equity being in your home growing at a very slow rate, probably equal to the rate of inflation, it's now in an engineered money and it becomes an equity engine. And at a 15% KAGER, your 30-year mortgage is done in 14 years. At 30% Kagger, your mortgage is done in 8 years. That means your monthly payments that you're making, you don't have to make those payments anymore. You can now increase your quality of life and standard of living with that cash flow. That's a big deal for people in the world who want to live a better life and do more with their family and have more experiences. No other asset in the world can deliver that. Yeah, I I think this is there's I think there's going to be real innovation in this space when you look at the duration of relationships within financial services. So, right, strategy is taking about 20% off the top compared to what they're going to get from their view of holding on to Bitcoin for 10 plus years compared to what they're paying out on stretch. And I definitely see more financial products coming in there because with Bitcoin that time heals a lot of the volatility and sort of the issue around margin calls and LTVs. And so I think now with the institutional interest in backing loans because of the understanding of how they work uh and you know all credit to Leen I think the publicly rated sort of secured vehicles are interesting. There's a lot of interest in doing more of those more broadly, but that's also helping educate the market in terms of how good the collateral is to ensure that a lender gets paid when participating in trying to make a market. So I think you'll see that 20 spread that 20% spread that strategy is capturing will come down and get shared between the people that are facilitating that business and the ultimate sort of borrower who wants to figure out how to get that cash and whether that's a reduction in APR, whether it's P being paid out as a yield in Bitcoin or dollars, there's going to be some interesting products that can come to market. >> It was amazing that they securitized that book and they got graded. So, we're we're really excited at People's Reserve because we are actually going to package the self-repaying mortgage and the Bitcoin mortgage reserve and issue a private label Bitcoin mortgage back security. And we feel very confident that if Lendon could get their thing graded and they're pioneering and leading the way on a book, well, then how much better if you got property title and pristine collateral? Well, when you think about the combination of loans and I mean the private market is booming in terms of interest about Bitcoin and when you compare that right in when I think about unsecured lending and sort of my history when you had somebody that was needing to make their payment to protect their home, they would make that payment. And so if we can combine those things in terms of, you know, the structured products that you're offering, loans that are more oriented towards home ownership, down payment, uh, then it's really going to make it attractive for lenders to seek out those providers, uh, and give some of that benefit back to the borrowers. Maybe we could talk about risk a little bit. Um, we talked about the opportunities, but obviously there's risk. Anybody that parts with his or her Bitcoin must be must be sure that there's no high liquidation risk in and custody. So, how do you guys handle it, Hunter? >> Well, I mean, the first thing I would say is I think the borrowers traditionally have gotten the short end of the stick on risk, right? Especially in terms of the original Bitcoin back lending space is that you're being asked to take on the volatility of the asset. You're asked to be and take on the volatility of LTV and manage your loan and you're being asked to take on the risk and the volatility associated with the loan being denominated dollars and the asset being denominated in Bitcoin and and so at Salt we've really worked to try to take out as much of that risk and work with the borrow on how to manage it. So, as I mentioned before, we have a products called stabilization. When somebody gets to 91%, right, a lot higher than a 65 to 80% liquidation point for a lot of issuers. You get swapped into stablecoin and it gives people some breathing room so they don't have to worry as much about the LTV risk when trying to manage their loan, especially during stressful times. Like the market doesn't drop when we want it to drop. Um, and so it gives people the opportunity to figure out how they want to do it. And then similar to I think what some of the innovation CJ's bringing to market, Salt Shield for us just takes away the margin calls altogether and treats it more like a mortgage where you make your payments, you're good like you are in good standing with your loan and you have the sort of protection around it. Uh and then we'll resolve it when it comes to the maturity date. And our goal for with lending is to try to think about how we can create as many products around Bitcoin as possible that feel like a mortgage where you're taking the volatility of the market out and we're allowing time and a length of relationship and a commitment together to make that product work um and and create new opportunities for everybody. >> That's the that's the big thing like I and I love that because you guys did that with the line of credit and we had a we dual collateralized to achieve the same goal, right? So it's like CJ, if Bitcoin goes down, am I going to lose my home? Like that's a then don't do it then. Like that's a horrible product. Could you imagine? So getting rid of margin calls and liquidation risk is like almost a must because you guys are putting up the pristine collateral. That is the most important asset on your balance sheet. As Bitcoin becomes financialized, that is the most powerful tool you have to build wealth smarter. And we have to figure out a way to continue to create products and innovate and be at the tip of the spear of financial engineering so that the borrowers aren't eating all of that risk. If the lender's risk is going down because of the pristine collateral, then the borrower's risk should go down through the structure of the product. >> What What do you think CJ is, the biggest misconception about Bitcoin backed loans? I I think the biggest misconception comes from the traditional world where they still think Bitcoin can go to zero, right? I can't what CJ, what happens if Bitcoin goes to zero? Yeah. What happens if an asteroid strikes the planet and we all die? What happens if we go extinct? What hap, you know, yeah, it's okay to ask that question, but what it really shows is you didn't really put in the hours to understand what is happening here. And you look at what we learned from gold and silver and natural money and how that value was stored over time. How how could one ounce of gold when when a suit was $20 buy a suit and then today 1 oz of gold buys a very fine suit? How did that happen? How did the dollars dilute and the gold hold? It's it's a characteristic of money and we're leveraging that characteristic. That's where the engineered money component comes in. We're taking those, we're leveraging the natural laws of economics to empower the holder of the asset. And that's why my position is that Bitcoin is actually the first real money that we've ever had because it's the first form of an engineered money, a truly decentralized, trustless store of value and transfer of value mechanism. And it's a hard pill to swallow, especially for the people like myself and you who spent a long time in in accounting and finance and tradi. But when the when the light bulb goes off, that's when the real fun starts to take place because you can know you can really truly know you can really understand that in a long time period the risk is gone and then you can share that risk share the benefits and create a better world with finance and I think it's a it's a mental shift in terms of understanding the models and there's two elements coming from sort of tradi first one is in unsecured lending a single bad loan will wipe out depending on the product 30 to 50 good customers. So the underwriting is excruciatingly important in terms of how you think about who you lend to and at what rate doesn't exist with Bitcoin back lending. Like first of all there are there are no credit checks other than there are jurisdictional requirements but basically your Bitcoin is your credit. So, as a lender, we couldn't be any happier than be able to do that and be able to back people that have accumulated a pristine collateral and provide loans. The second one is the understanding of risk and collateralized lending. People think of collateralized lending, whether it's homes or it's cars or it's other instruments where you have to go repossess it. We don't have to go repossess anything, right? The Bitcoin is liquid. We have an automated trading platform that ensures we can swap it into stablecoin when stabilization occurs and we can protect the borrower and we can protect our lenders uh ensure that they get their principle back and everybody has the time to manage their loans appropriately. >> Great guys. Um it's an exciting topic and I would like you to now just uh share some closing uh remarks. We are close to the end of our time. >> Yeah, I just want to thank BTC Inc. They've been a great partner of Salts. It's a pleasure to come and share our insights and sort of thinking about the industry. Uh and for all of you, I'd encourage you to stop by the Salt Booth. We've got two great offers out for the conference. One is if you're interested in trying out Salt Shield, which is our no liquidation product. Uh we combine it. You can get a 12-month loan at 10.95%. Talk to the team. And then also if you're interested in switching away and and trying out getting to some different products, we'll beat other lenders rates by 150 basis points. >> Thank you, CJ. I know you have some exciting news to share as well. >> Yes, absolutely. I I'd also like to start off thanking the conference and thanking everyone of you who showed up here because Bitcoin succeeds because of you. Bitcoin succeeds because of word of mouth. There is no marketing team. There is no marketing budget. It's your conviction in the asset. It's your love and care for your fellow family and friends and men and women that make Bitcoin do what it does, which is just naturally take over, right? You said it perfectly. It's already happening. >> Nothing stops this train, baby. We're going all the way. >> We're borrowing some language. >> Yep. It's that's how it's h and it's because of you and what all of you do. And I do have some very exciting news, Leon. Thank you for for letting me do this. Um, People's Reserve is announcing our official go live date. So, building in the United States, being fully regulated. Man, it was a battle. But we feel so excited for the people out here who have been responsible savers of Bitcoin and can finally unlock the purchasing power of their Bitcoin without giving up ownership and missing on the on the other side without liquidation risk and margin calls, right? buy a house, you can actually sleep at night cuz you don't have to babysit the charts. And we are going to be launching on July 4th of this year. So, our official launch date will be July 4th, We the People Day. And we couldn't be more excited to work with you guys. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. Every year, this community comes together to celebrate, to debate, to build what comes next. And every year, the stage gets bigger. Sound money center stage. So, where do you go to celebrate the next chapter in Bitcoin history? You come home. Nashville, July 2027.