Block Seeks Bank Charter for Bitcoin Custody
Jack Dorsey’s Block Applies for Bank Charter to Custody Bitcoin
Block, the payments company led by Jack Dorsey, has applied to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to form a federally supervised national trust bank focused on digital asset custody.
The company said it filed an application to establish Builders Bank & Trust, N.A. as an uninsured national trust bank. If approved, the entity would operate under OCC supervision and provide custody and related fiduciary services for digital assets, including Bitcoin and stablecoins.
According to the application details cited in coverage, the proposed trust bank would be non-depository: it would not accept deposits and would not make loans. Its activities would instead center on custody of Bitcoin and other digital assets, executing customer buy and sell orders on a riskless principal basis, and stablecoin settlement.
Block has operated digital asset services for roughly eight years under more than 50 state money transmitter and virtual currency licenses. The application says Block handled about $10.7 billion in Bitcoin transaction volume in 2025 and served about two million monthly crypto users through Cash App by the second quarter.
Block said a federal charter would allow it to support these activities through a consistent national framework as the business scales, bringing parts of its Bitcoin, stablecoin, and other digital asset-related operations under direct federal oversight rather than primarily state-by-state licensing.
The filing comes amid a broader push by crypto and fintech firms to place certain digital asset activities under federal banking supervision. Other digital asset companies have pursued similar regulatory pathways, including firms that have received conditional approval or are awaiting decisions from the regulator.
