Block applies for federal bank charter for Bitcoin custody
In brief
- Block applied to OCC for national trust bank charter consolidating digital asset custody and trading under one federal license
- Builders Bank & Trust would be uninsured, non-depository, headquartered in Sioux Falls, South Dakota with no branches
- Block processed $10.7 billion Bitcoin transaction volume in 2025, serving 2 million monthly crypto users via Cash App
- Eight crypto trust charters approved or conditionally approved by OCC since December, with more applications pending
Consolidating Crypto Operations Under One Charter
Block has applied to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for a national trust bank charter, the payments company announced Tuesday. Builders Bank & Trust would be uninsured and non-depository, taking no deposits and making no loans.
The bank's scope is narrow and specific. Its business would be custody of Bitcoin and other digital assets, executing customer buy and sell orders on a riskless principal basis, and stablecoin settlement. A federal charter, Block says, would let it support those activities "through a consistent national framework as the business scales."
Block has run digital asset services for about eight years under more than 50 state money transmitter and virtual currency licenses. The scale is substantial. The company handled around $10.7 billion in Bitcoin transaction volume in 2025 and served about two million monthly crypto users through Cash App by the second quarter.
Leadership and Structure
Lee Woolley, Block's digital asset strategy lead and a former Northern Trust and BNY Mellon executive, would chair Builders Bank and serve as chief executive. Builders Bank would be headquartered in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, with no branches.
The Broader Charter Landscape
Block enters a crowded field of crypto trust charter applications. The OCC conditionally approved five crypto trust charters in December, covering Circle, Ripple, BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets and Paxos. The OCC approved three additional crypto trust charters in February, including Crypto.com and Stripe subsidiary Bridge. Coinbase won preliminary approval for a crypto trust charter in April.
Applications from Morgan Stanley, Payoneer, Zerohash, Kraken's Payward and World Liberty Financial are pending with the OCC. The OCC denied Wise National Trust a crypto trust charter in July.
The regulatory path has shifted. In April, the OCC amended its chartering rule to cover operations of a trust company and activities related thereto instead of fiduciary activities. The change opened the door to custody-focused operators. Still, not everyone agrees the OCC has the power to grant these charters. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has argued that the OCC lacks authority to grant trust charters to firms that do not perform traditional fiduciary work, a reading the industry disputes.
