Bitcoin-backed home loans are really coming to Australia this year
After winning a court fight with ASIC, Block Earner is pushing ahead with plans to allow Bitcoin owners to use their crypto as collateral to buy homes.
Block Earner says it will become the first company in Australia to offer Bitcoin-backed property purchases when it opens an offering for home deposit loans as early as October.
Co-founder and CEO Charlie Karaboga says the startup will offer deposit loans up to 60% of the Bitcoin's value, meaning a deposit loan of $200,000 will require about $330,000 worth of Bitcoin — about 1.85 tokens at this week's all-time-high price.
"That brings down the customer base, based on our analysis, to around 10,000 [potential] customers," Karaboga said. "But there are 2.3 million Australians holding Bitcoin or crypto, and this number is increasing. Now you see a Bitcoin chart in every newspaper or finance-related TV show. So this is basically a trend that's going up."
Block Earner, which has been embroiled in a high-stakes legal battle with ASIC for much of its existence, hosted a group of around 70 "high net worth individuals" at a Sydney event earlier in the month to pitch the home deposit product, and launched a website waitlist on Wednesday morning. It will run similar events in Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth to drum up interest.
