The rise in prices of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC), Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE), and others may have enabled lower-income households to take out new mortgages to purchase property, a new study revealed.
What Happened: A paper by the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Financial Research has identified a correlation between the surge in cryptocurrency investments and an increase in debt, particularly mortgages, in areas with high exposure to cryptocurrencies.
Data showed that for low-income households in high-crypto exposure zip codes, the mortgage holder rate nearly quadrupled from 4.1% in January 2020 to 15.4% in January 2024. Additionally, the average balance per mortgage increased by over 150% from $171,773 in 2020 to $443,123.
“This indicates that low-income households may be using cryptocurrency gains to take out new mortgages and …
Full story available on Benzinga.com