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.

WangDou'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