Block, led by Jack Dorsey, has filed with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) for a national trust bank charter called Builders Bank. The new entity would consolidate the company's Bitcoin custody work, currently spread across money transmitter licenses in more than 50 states.
What happened
Block's application marks another step by a major fintech company toward federal oversight of its crypto operations. If approved, Builders Bank would hold a single OCC charter instead of requiring separate permits in every state where Block serves customers.
The company, formerly known as Square, rebranded to Block in 2021 after Jack Dorsey, a Twitter co-founder, made Bitcoin a central piece of its long-term strategy. Cash App users today buy and hold BTC directly inside the app, and Block itself keeps part of its Bitcoin on its own corporate balance sheet. Block's shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange, so any shift in the company's regulatory status draws attention from mainstream investors, not just crypto watchers.
Why Block wants a separate banking structure
Maintaining money transmitter licenses across dozens of states is widely seen as one of the heaviest operational burdens for US fintech companies working with crypto. Each jurisdiction requires its own reporting, capital checks, and compliance procedures.
A single national trust charter would bring all of that under one federal regulator and make it easier to scale custody services into new states without separate applications in each one. For customers, it could mean more transparent and standardized asset protection, since a national trust bank falls under one set of OCC requirements for capital, reporting, and safekeeping of funds. For millions of Cash App users, that would eventually mean their Bitcoin sits inside a structure under federal oversight rather than just state-level rules.
A wave of crypto bank charters
Block is not the only crypto company seeking an OCC trust charter this year. World Liberty received preliminary approval for a national trust bank on August 15 to run its USD1 stablecoin, and OpenReserve got similar preliminary approval on September 5.
The regulator appears increasingly willing to grant these charters, treating a federal trust license as a way to bring crypto businesses into the standard banking oversight system rather than leave them outside it. That is shaping a trend where large players seek a status comparable to traditional banks. Part of the shift traces back to last year's GENIUS Act, which pushed the regulator to spell out clearer rules for stablecoins and custody services, and the OCC has since granted preliminary approvals more often to companies that previously operated outside the banking perimeter.
What comes next
The OCC typically reviews national trust charter applications for months, and final approval is not guaranteed. Companies that already hold preliminary approval, such as OpenReserve or World Liberty, are still working through additional review steps before a full bank launch. For Block, the process also means rebuilding internal compliance around federal standards instead of a patchwork of state rules, a shift that takes more than a few months.
If Block gets its charter, Builders Bank would become one of the few structures combining Bitcoin custody, Cash App's payment infrastructure, and federal bank oversight under one legal entity. That could make the company a reference point for other fintechs weighing a similar move.
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