Milo, a U.S. cryptocurrency lending business that specializes in crypto-backed mortgages, has originated over $100 million in home loans, including the company’s largest single transaction to date, a $12 million crypto mortgage.

The firm, which holds mortgage provider licenses in ten U.S. states with more to follow, has a perfect track record of zero margin calls across its mortgage portfolio, despite enduring consistently choppy periods of volatility for bitcoin and other cryptos, Milo said in a press release on Wednesday.

The firm allows crypto holders to pledge their bitcoin or ether as collateral for loan amounts up to $25 million without having to sell their digital assets, eliminating the need for cash down payments and avoiding costly taxable events.

Stepping back, Milo founder Josip Rupena said people who were perhaps advised by a friend to buy some Bitcoin 10 years ago say, and had the courage to hold on to it through recurring cycles of volatility, may find that today maybe 95% of their net worth is in crypto.

Such people will typically be aged between 30 and 55, have a job, and perhaps a retirement account, but they don’t have enough income to buy the home they would like to, Rupena said.

“Our typical transaction is a million and a half dollar home,” Rupena said in an interview. “A customer might make $100k a year and their crypto net worth might be anywhere from three to seven million. If you were to replace Bitcoin with Apple stock, a product like ours would probably not need to exist. But because the consumer owns an asset that is not widely accepted, plus its concerns around the volatility, means that products like ours do need to exist to help them buy a home.”

Milo asks for 100% of the value of the property in crypto collateral, which can be held with qualified custodians like Coinbase or BitGo, or there is a self-custodial option for those who want to keep complete control of their assets. The loans, which start at 8.25%, can also be used for things like acquiring land, funding home improvements, and business investments.

Unlike regular crypto loans which can have margin calls at 25% drops, Milo designed the product to be more conservative and accommodate 65% drawdowns.

Even in turbulent times like the past few months, if a drawdown situation were to cross the necessary threshold, Milo would reduce the value of the loan, Rupena said, so that the customer could continue to have the mortgage.

“We would just essentially derisk the 100% and bring it down to a 65% or 70%, like a regular mortgage, and then they could continue to make payments. We designed it in a way that as long as a person can continue to make payments, they’re going to be able to continue to have this home. They’re not going to lose their home, because Bitcoin goes down,” he said.

So far Milo has done several transactions in the property hotspot of Miami and more in other parts of Florida, as well as Texas, California, Colorado, Connecticut and Arizona. The $12 million transaction mentioned in the press release was in Tennessee, Rupena said.

The product has been given the blessing of bitcoin pioneer and CEO of Blockstream, Adam Back.

“Milo’s product is a game changer in bitcoin lending and unlocks real world use cases for so many bitcoiners,” said Back in a statement. “While bitcoin continues to appreciate, buyers are able to build equity in real estate and don’t have to sell their long term conviction, bitcoin.”

Solana-based memecoin launchpad Pump.fun has rolled out a new feature that shifts rewards toward memecoin traders rather than its deployers — a tweak to its fee model that once generated over $15 million in a single day at its peak.

In a post to X on Tuesday, Pump.fun said the platform’s memecoin creators can now decide whether a token “truly deserves” Creator Fees, or whether it’s best to redirect rewards to traders engaging with the token through “Cashback Coins.” 

Pump.fun’s original model features Creator Fees, giving token creators 0.3% of all fees generated by the tokens they launch.

However, Pump.fun said not all tokens deserve Creator Fees because many tokens achieve success without a team or project lead, thereby disproportionately rewarding token deployers.

Creator Fees need change. Not every token deserves Creator Fees.

Now, users have the ability to decide whether a token truly deserves Creator Fees, or whether it makes more sense to reward the traders engaging with the token.

Cashback Coins are now live. Learn more 👇 pic.twitter.com/UbYoAbQ1Ya

— Pump.fun (@Pumpfun) February 17, 2026

“Now, traders can choose to engage with tokens they feel the most aligned with, ultimately letting the market decide who gets rewarded and where the bar is set.”

Pump.fun said coin creators must choose between the Creator Fees or Trader Cashback model before launching. Once chosen, the decision is irreversible.

Terminal, a crypto trading platform built into Pump.fun, said Cashback Coins are generated on every trade made and are only accessible through Terminal.

It comes as analysts from onchain analytics firm Santiment said on Friday that memecoins are showing signs of a potential bottom.

“This collective acceptance of the ‘end of the meme era’ is a classic capitulation signal,” Santiment said, explaining that when a sector of the market is completely written off, it is often the “contrarian time” to start paying attention.

Pump.fun fees have fallen over the last year

Pump.fun’s new rewards feature comes as it recorded $31.8 million worth of fees in January, marking a 75.6% fall from the $148.1 million posted in January 2025 — the platform’s best-performing month to date.

Pump.fun has brought in $15.6 million so far in February, putting it on track to fall short of its January total.

The change to the rewards model also follows months of criticism that only a small number of traders were profiting on Pump.fun, while the vast majority of retail traders were incurring losses. 

Data from Dune Analytics shows that of the 58.7 million crypto wallets that have interacted with Pump.fun, only 4.76 million have profited between $1,000 and $10,000, while 969,780 wallets have posted winnings between $10,000 and $100,000.

Less than 13,700 Pump.fun wallets have reached millionaire status on the platform.

The new feature was received well by many in the Pump.fun community, while others, such as X user Coos, pondered whether the rewards model could reduce incentives for developers to launch new coins:

“So devs have less reasons to push coins longer, as the most lucrative time is when coins are still on pf, and have just graduated where there is the most volume.”

Coinbase’s Base shut down its Creator Rewards offering

While Pump.fun has changed its rewards model, others have shut down their rewards programs entirely.