The house that bitcoin bought, with Josip Rupena (Milo)
How to Lend Money to Strangers
Brendan le Grange
4.9 • 43 Ratings
🗓️ 23 April 2026
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Life got in the way of my episode release schedule for a bit there, and so a few months have passed since I sat down with Josip Rupena to discuss crypto-backed mortgages. In the world of crypto, a few months can be a lifetime, and, in this case, not the easiest lifetime, and yet, Milo has just issued its largest single transaction ever: a $12 million crypto mortgage. The demand is real, from high net worth individuals buying homes with Bitcoin to clients tapping home equity to buy more, and, if anything, the recent dips in crypto prices reflect a story of growing resilience rather than one of growing volatility, and that's a very good thing for the industry.
Jospi Rupena is the founder and CEO of Milo, a financial technology company and pioneer in crypto lending
You can learn more about Milo at https://www.milo.io/
Josip is on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/josiprupena/
Milo is there at https://www.linkedin.com/company/startmilo/
I'm there, too, at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanlegrange/
Please also follow, share, and talk about the show using https://www.linkedin.com/company/how-to-lend-money-to-strangers/
Oh, and if you remember Suren Rastogi from episode 174 of this show, the Kickstarter for Burnout is going live on the 21st of April, head on over, take a look at the final product, and if it appeals to you, order your copy - I did
Other friends of the show include:
https://www.ogmara.com/ (customised risk management and analytic consulting)
https://www.ontap.co.za/pages/hoedspruit-store-details (for all your Hoedspruit-based bathroom needs)
https://flatwhiteorfoff.com/ (ask for anything other than a flat white, the answer is in the name)
https://www.joinhumoni.com/ (helping international students find accommodation, work, and financial services on day one)
https://www.haboomoney.com/ (making collections personalised, flexible and intelligent)
https://beetlesense.ai (AI-powered day one pest detection for forestry)
And since you like podcasts, I also co-create hAIghtened senses with Christo van Zyl, in which looks at the intersection between human senses and technology (and this week, flying cars)
Keep well, Brendan
This episode was set up by Kirstin Robison from Pitch PR, a boutique firm specializing in national media for consumer and business-to-business companies. If you'd like to get onto shows like mine, reach out to them at https://pitchpublicrelations.com/
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | if you think about underwriting mortgages, it was really under, it's underwritten on the basis of your |
| 0:04.1 | income and the fact that you can put a fairly large down payment, right, 20, 30% down and get a mortgage. So what we came up with was essentially a product that took some of the best of both properties and rolled it into one. And, you know, Milo's, you know, mission today is to help people not sell their Bitcoin, right? |
| 0:19.7 | You know, it's as simple as that. |
| 0:21.2 | And the way we do that is that, you know, |
| 0:23.2 | someone that wants to buy a million dollar home, mission today is to help people not sell their Bitcoin, right? It's as simple as that. And the way we do |
| 0:22.3 | that is that, you know, someone that wants to buy a million dollar home, we're going to finance a million |
| 0:26.3 | dollars, right? We're going to finance the whole thing for them. And because we're lending out a higher |
| 0:30.2 | loan to value, it means we're taking a different kind of risk than someone that would be taking |
| 0:35.3 | a doubt payment or putting a doubt payment. |
| 0:48.7 | The ultra wealthy, I'm talking of the likes of Zuckerberg and Musk and Bezos, they don't usually earn a salary and they get shares, but they don't sell them. Instead, what they do is they take a small percentage of |
| 0:56.0 | those shares and they put them in security at a bank and borrow against those. It's tax sufficient, |
| 1:02.0 | it's flexible, and it's a great way for them to build more and more wealth. Now, they don't do |
| 1:07.5 | very good things with that wealth. You could do better things. If only you had the |
| 1:12.4 | same sort of tools, or in other words, how do we help ordinary people build wealth in the same |
| 1:18.0 | way the ultra wealthy do? In today's episode of How to Lend Money to Strangers with myself, |
| 1:23.3 | Brendan LaGrange, we're going to be looking at that. But with a crypto spin, people who bought |
| 1:29.2 | Bitcoin five years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, and held onto those coins, believe in |
| 1:36.3 | Bitcoin. And they've got rich because of it. But those same people might need a house. We all do |
| 1:42.8 | eventually. If they want to buy that house in the traditional |
| 1:46.1 | market, they have to sell those bitcoins, that asset that they are still very bullish of, |
| 1:51.6 | because if they've held it this long, through the ups and downs that took it from, well, |
| 1:56.9 | cents and dollars in the early days, but let's talk in the mainstream terms from a few thousand dollars to $120,000 at its peak, even 90,000 now after a bit of a dip. |
... |
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