Block Applies for a Federal Trust Bank Charter: No Deposits, No Loans, Just a Vault for Your Bitcoin
Bitcoin was built so nobody would need a bank. Now the most devout bitcoin company in fintech is lining up for a bank charter.
Three key facts
Block filed with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on September 4 and disclosed it on September 8: the plan is Builders Bank & Trust. It would be an uninsured national trust bank with no branches, no deposits and no loans. Its job list is short: custody of bitcoin and other digital assets, executing customer buy and sell orders on a riskless-principal basis, and stablecoin settlement. Lee Woolley, Block's head of digital asset strategy and a Northern Trust and BNY Mellon alum, is slated to be chair and CEO.
Today's setup is a patchwork of more than 50 state licenses. Block moved roughly $10.7 billion in bitcoin volume in 2025 under those state money-transmitter and virtual-currency licenses, and Cash App had about two million monthly crypto users as of the second quarter. A federal trust charter would put custody under one regulator.
The OCC's door is open, but not to everyone. Since December 2025 it has conditionally approved a string of crypto trust charters, including Circle, Ripple, BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets, Paxos, Crypto.com and Stripe's Bridge. In July it turned down Wise's national trust bank application.
Wang Dou's Take
Fifty-plus state licenses means fifty sets of compliance filings, fifty teams of examiners and fifty definitions of "virtual currency." Block doesn't want the prestige of a bank. It wants one regulator instead of fifty.
But look at what this "bank" actually is: no deposits, no lending, no branches. It's a safe with a federal seal on the door. The two things that make banks rich, net interest margin and credit creation, are off the table. So don't fall for the "Jack Dorsey opens a bank" headline. This is one more step in crypto turning itself into a traditional custodian: Circle got one, Ripple got one, Crypto.com got one, and Block can't afford to be the company without one.
Back-of-envelope: $10.7 billion in volume across two million monthly crypto users works out to a bit over $5,000 per user per year. That's several zeros short of a Wall Street custody giant. The charter is an entry ticket, not a moat. The next fight is over who charges the lowest custody fee, which is exactly the kind of middleman toll bitcoin was invented to abolish.
Source: Decrypt · The Defiant · Crowdfund Insider