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

The competitive and political backdrop around the filing is also sharpening. For years, Anchorage Digital operated as the only crypto firm holding this type of federal charter, but applicants have surged since then: the OCC reports that of roughly 40 charter applications received over the past eighteen months, 23 — or 57.5% — involve some form of digital-asset activity, an eightfold increase over four years according to Comptroller Jonathan Gould. The push coincides with the GENIUS Act, enacted July 18, 2025, for which the OCC proposed implementing rules in February covering reserves, redemption, custody and risk management. Opposition persists, however: Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote to Gould on May 18 arguing such approvals abuse the National Bank Act, and a trust charter does not guarantee access to Federal Reserve payment systems, despite the Fed's May proposal of a restricted "payment account."

Details from the application itself add texture to the proposal. According to the filing materials, Block handled roughly $10.7 billion in Bitcoin transactions in fiscal 2025 across Cash App and Square, and currently operates under more than 50 state money-transmitter and crypto-related licenses — a patchwork the new bank would replace with one federal framework. A three-year plan outlined in the document calls for consolidating Block's existing Bitcoin custody operations into the federally chartered trust structure, alongside services covering customer trade execution, asset transfers, and stablecoin settlement and remittance.

The regulatory climate surrounding the filing shifted again this week, as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent publicly pressed the Senate to advance the CLARITY Act, warning that failure to pass the market-structure bill would undermine American leadership in digital assets and forgo enhanced national security tools against their misuse. An initial procedural vote is set for September 15, requiring a 60-vote threshold that means at least seven Democrats must join the chamber's 53 Republicans. Advocacy group Cedar Innovation Foundation has launched a seven-figure advertising campaign in support, while Senator Cynthia Lummis cautioned that inaction risks ceding financial leadership to China. Senator Thom Tillis, however, warned the bill could fail without further compromise, and Democrats are demanding tougher ethics rules for crypto ventures tied to senior officials — developments that could shape the supervisory environment any federally chartered custodian would ultimately operate in.

The legislative push gained fresh momentum Wednesday, when Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent took to X to say he "strongly urges" senators to remain at the negotiating table and agree to the motion to proceed when they return from their five-week recess, with the Senate now scheduled to vote on the Clarity Act next week. He warned that failure to advance the market-structure bill would send "a troubling signal" to allies and adversaries that America is unwilling to lead on digital assets and would forgo national security tools against misuse. The bill, already passed by the House, divides oversight among regulators by asset class, but has stalled amid banking-lobby disputes over stablecoin yield and Democratic demands for stricter ethics provisions; President Trump has separately urged its passage.

(as of 04:18 UTC) 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.