Jack Dorsey's Block Applies to OCC for Bitcoin (BTC) Custody Trust Bank

Block Files for Federal Trust Charter

Jack Dorsey's Block has carried its digital-asset ambitions into regulated banking territory, filing an application on September 8 with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish Builders Bank & Trust, a federally chartered institution dedicated to the custody of Bitcoin and stablecoins. The move extends a strategy that began with consumer-facing products and now reaches toward institutional-grade financial infrastructure. If approved, Builders Bank would operate as an uninsured national trust bank — a charter type that concentrates on asset safekeeping and fiduciary services rather than commercial lending. The bank would not accept customer deposits or issue loans, which places it outside the scope of Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) protection; instead, it would answer directly to OCC supervision at the federal level. That structure is the point. A federal charter would let Block run its Bitcoin custody and trustee services under a single national supervisor rather than navigating a patchwork of individual state regimes. Lee Woolley, who leads digital-asset strategy at Block, is slated to serve as the bank's president and chief executive. Notably, the filing explicitly names both Bitcoin and stablecoins among the assets in scope — a telling detail given Block's ownership of the Square payments platform and the Cash App, which already handle Bitcoin transactions for millions of US consumers. Connecting regulated custody to that existing payments ecosystem is the clearest signal yet that Dorsey's company treats digital-asset services as core infrastructure, not an experiment. Block has long placed Bitcoin at the center of its corporate identity, spanning exchange services on Cash App, mining hardware through its Proto division, and support for Bitcoin's proof-of-work network. The charter application would add regulated custody to that stack — though it remains a proposal, and the bank cannot open until the OCC grants approval.

A Crowded Federal Charter Queue

The executive chosen to lead the prospective bank arrives with a banking résumé spanning more than two decades. Lee Woolley has held senior roles at Northern Trust and BNY Mellon, and previously served as president and chief executive of the Treasury Department Federal Credit Union. In remarks accompanying the application, Woolley framed the charter push as an extension of Block's economic-empowerment mission, citing the company's digital-asset experience, the expertise built at Square Financial Services, and the specialist banking team Block has assembled, and said he intends to work with the OCC to secure the license needed to safeguard Block's and customers' assets. Block's filing also lands amid a visibly crowded queue. Remittance giant Revolut secured conditional OCC approval just last week, while Coinbase, Paxos, BitGo, Ripple and Circle obtained charters earlier in the cycle. Since 2025, the OCC has received 40 applications for new bank charters, approving 21 and rejecting 2 — an acceptance rate suggesting federal regulators are, for now, receptive to crypto-adjacent entrants. The structural appeal is straightforward: a national trust charter replaces state-by-state money-transmitter licensing with a single federal framework under one supervisor. Because the bank neither lends against customer assets nor takes insured deposits, holdings sit in custody rather than on a fractional-reserve balance sheet — a model with direct relevance as institutional demand for segregated, regulated crypto safekeeping accelerates, echoed by products such as CoinCorner's recently launched Lloyd's-insured Bitcoin vault. Block's application therefore reads less like an isolated bet and more like an effort to keep pace with an industry-wide migration toward federally supervised custody. Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on Binance.

Approval Hinges on OCC Review

Our reading of the filing itself underscores one distinction worth keeping front of mind: this is an application, not a charter. The OCC's review process will determine whether Builders Bank & Trust comes into existence at all, and neither a launch timeline nor any conditions of approval have been disclosed. What the document does establish is intent — Block formally seeking to bind its Bitcoin and stablecoin custody operations to federal oversight at a moment when 40 charter applications have already tested the regulator's appetite, with 21 approvals against 2 denials. If granted, the charter would mark the fullest institutionalization yet of Dorsey's Bitcoin strategy; if denied, custody plans remain constrained to state regimes.