What Is Builders Bank? Jack Dorsey’s Block Applies for a Bitcoin and Stablecoin Trust Bank

Jack Dorsey's Block is making another move deeper into regulated financial infrastructure — this time by applying to create a federally supervised bank focused partly on Bitcoin and stablecoin custody.

On September 8, 2026, Block submitted an application to the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, or OCC, to establish Builders Bank & Trust, N.A.

If approved, Builders Bank would operate as an uninsured national trust bank under OCC supervision and provide custody and related fiduciary services, including services involving Bitcoin and stablecoins. Block says the proposed charter would place certain custody activities it already offers under a consistent federal supervisory framework as those businesses scale. Block's September 8 announcement

But one distinction is essential:

Builders Bank is not yet an operating bank.

Block has applied for a charter. The OCC still needs to review and approve the application, and Block says Builders Bank will not begin operating until the required regulatory approvals have been obtained.

It would also be very different from the bank most consumers imagine.

Builders Bank would not accept deposits and would not make loans.

That makes the application less about Block opening another checking-account business and more about a broader trend now taking shape in U.S. crypto finance:

digital-asset companies are increasingly trying to bring custody, stablecoins and blockchain financial infrastructure directly inside the federal banking perimeter.

Summary

Block applied on September 8, 2026 to establish Builders Bank & Trust, N.A., an uninsured national trust bank supervised by the OCC.

If approved, Builders Bank would provide custody and related fiduciary services, including for Bitcoin and stablecoins.

It would not accept deposits, make loans or operate as a conventional commercial bank.

The institution has not yet received OCC approval and cannot commence operations until the necessary regulatory approvals are secured.

Block's Digital Asset Strategy Lead Lee Woolley would serve as president and CEO of Builders Bank if the charter is approved. Woolley has more than two decades of banking experience, including previous leadership roles at Treasury Department Federal Credit Union, Northern Trust and BNY Mellon.

The application comes as crypto and fintech companies increasingly seek national trust bank charters to bring digital-asset custody and related services under a single federal framework.

For Block, the move could connect businesses already spanning payments, Bitcoin self-custody and Bitcoin mining infrastructure with a new federally supervised custody layer.

For the wider industry, Builders Bank is another indication that the line separating crypto infrastructure companies from regulated financial institutions is becoming less clear.

What Is Builders Bank & Trust?

Builders Bank & Trust, N.A. is a proposed national trust bank being created by Block.

It does not yet exist as an operating federally chartered bank.

Block has submitted its application to the OCC, which regulates national banks and federal savings associations in the United States.

Under Block's proposed model, Builders Bank would concentrate on:

• custody;

• fiduciary services;

• Bitcoin;

• stablecoins;

• and related asset-servicing activities.

Block says the charter would provide a consistent national regulatory framework for certain custody services the company already provides.

That makes Builders Bank more accurately described as a proposed digital-asset trust and custody institution than as a new retail bank.

Has Builders Bank Already Been Approved by the OCC?

No.

This is the most important factual distinction in the announcement.

Block has submitted an application.

It has not announced preliminary conditional approval, final approval or the launch of an operating national trust bank.

The company's announcement states that:

the application remains subject to OCC review and approval, and Builders Bank will not begin operations unless and until the required regulatory approvals are received.

That makes Builders Bank different from some crypto banking developments that have already moved further through the regulatory process.

For example, MEXC recently covered OpenReserve Bank's preliminary conditional OCC approval. OpenReserve has already passed the preliminary conditional approval stage, although it too remains subject to additional pre-opening requirements.

Builders Bank is currently earlier in that process.

Would Builders Bank Be a Normal Bank?

No.

Block explicitly says Builders Bank would be:

uninsured

non-deposit-taking

and

non-lending.

That means customers would not open an ordinary insured savings account at Builders Bank in the way they might at a conventional retail bank.

Builders Bank would not use deposits to make mortgages, business loans or personal loans.

Its proposed role is narrower:

asset custody and fiduciary services.

Builders Bank vs a Traditional Commercial Bank

This distinction matters because the word bank can create the wrong expectation.

Builders Bank is not designed to turn Cash App into a conventional bank account through this charter.

It is designed to create a federally supervised institutional structure around custody and related fiduciary activities.

Why Is Block Applying for a National Trust Bank Charter?

The simplest answer is:

regulatory consolidation and scale.

Digital-asset companies operating in the United States can face a complicated combination of:

state licenses;

trust-company rules;

custody requirements;

federal regulation;

money-transmission requirements;

and different rules for different financial products.

A national trust bank can place qualifying trust and custody activities under OCC supervision at the federal level.

Block says the proposed charter would provide a consistent national framework for certain custody and related activities it currently offers.

That phrase is particularly important.

Builders Bank is not necessarily about launching a completely new business from zero.

It is partly about changing the regulatory architecture around businesses Block already has.

Why Bitcoin Is Central to Block's Strategy

Bitcoin is not a new direction for Block.

It has increasingly become part of the company's broader product identity.

Block operates several businesses across consumer finance, merchant payments and Bitcoin infrastructure, including:

Cash App, which offers Bitcoin functionality;

Bitkey, its Bitcoin self-custody wallet;

and Proto, its Bitcoin mining hardware and infrastructure business.

That creates an unusual vertical structure:

consumer access

↓

Bitcoin ownership

↓

self-custody infrastructure

↓

mining infrastructure

↓

potential federally regulated institutional custody

If Builders Bank is approved, Block would have another regulated layer connecting the company to Bitcoin's financial infrastructure.

Would Builders Bank Hold Bitcoin?

That is the plan described in Block's application announcement.

Block says the proposed institution would provide custody and related fiduciary services including for Bitcoin and stablecoins.

Bitcoin custody means securely holding private-key-controlled assets on behalf of customers under an institutional custody framework.

For large investors, asset managers and financial companies, custody is considerably more complicated than simply generating a wallet.

Institutional custody may involve:

segregated assets;

governance controls;

multi-party authorization;

key-management policies;

transaction approval systems;

auditing;

cybersecurity;

compliance;

and regulatory supervision.

This is one reason federal trust charters have become strategically important in digital assets.

Would Builders Bank Issue a Stablecoin?

Block has not announced that Builders Bank would issue its own stablecoin as part of this application.

That distinction should not be blurred.

The official announcement says Builders Bank would provide custody and related fiduciary services including for stablecoins.

That means stablecoins are within the proposed custody scope.

It does not mean:

Block stablecoin confirmed

or

Builders Bank stablecoin confirmed.

Unless Block separately announces a stablecoin issuance plan, the application should be treated primarily as a custody and trust-bank story.

What Does “Uninsured” Mean?

Builders Bank would be an uninsured national trust bank.

This is connected to its proposed business model.

It would not accept conventional deposits.

Therefore, readers should not assume that assets held through the institution would function like ordinary FDIC-insured checking or savings deposits.

Custody is fundamentally different from deposit banking.

With a conventional deposit:

customer deposits cash

↓

cash generally becomes a liability of the bank

↓

bank may deploy its balance sheet

↓

eligible deposits may receive deposit-insurance protection

With custody:

client owns asset

↓

custodian safeguards asset

↓

custodian provides fiduciary or asset-servicing functions

The legal structure, risk and regulatory framework are different.

Who Would Run Builders Bank?

Block says Lee Woolley would become president and CEO of Builders Bank if the institution is approved.

Woolley currently serves as Block's Digital Asset Strategy Lead.

According to Block, he has more than 20 years of banking and financial-services experience.

His previous positions include:

President and CEO of Treasury Department Federal Credit Union;

and senior banking leadership roles at Northern Trust and BNY Mellon.

The appointment is notable because it suggests Block is not treating Builders Bank simply as a crypto product extension.

The company is pairing its digital-asset businesses with traditional banking leadership experience.

How Is Builders Bank Different From Square Financial Services?

Block already has experience operating a regulated banking entity.

Its history includes Square Financial Services, an industrial bank associated with Block's merchant ecosystem.

Block itself referenced that experience when announcing the Builders Bank application.

But the proposed Builders Bank has a different focus.

Square Financial Services is connected more closely with merchant financial services and lending infrastructure.

Builders Bank would instead focus on:

custody

fiduciary services

Bitcoin

stablecoins.

That distinction shows how Block's regulated financial strategy is becoming more specialized.

Rather than trying to put every financial activity inside one institution, different regulated entities can serve different parts of the company's ecosystem.

Why Are Crypto Companies Applying for National Trust Bank Charters?

Block's application is part of a much broader shift.

National trust bank charters have become increasingly attractive to companies working with:

digital-asset custody;

stablecoins;

tokenized securities;

institutional crypto;

and blockchain settlement.

MEXC previously examined this trend in its analysis of how the OCC's approach to crypto banking is bringing digital assets deeper into regulated U.S. financial infrastructure.

The strategy solves an increasingly important institutional problem.

Crypto markets are global.

But financial regulation remains fragmented.

A federal charter can potentially give an institution one nationally supervised structure around qualifying activities rather than relying entirely on a patchwork of state-level frameworks.

The Crypto Bank-Charter Race Is Accelerating

Builders Bank also arrives at a time when the OCC is handling a growing pipeline of digital-asset-related charter activity.

MEXC has already covered several examples.

Circle's national trust bank strategy demonstrates how a major stablecoin company can use a federal trust structure to move deeper into custody and institutional infrastructure.

Sony Bank's U.S. trust-bank expansion shows another variation involving digital-asset custody and stablecoin infrastructure.

And OpenReserve represents a more ambitious attempt to build blockchain-native banking and capital-market infrastructure around a newly organized national bank.

Block's proposed model is narrower.

Builders Bank is not being presented as a general-purpose blockchain bank.

Its immediate rationale is custody.

That narrower mandate could be important.

Why Custody Is Becoming the Entry Point Into Crypto Banking

Custody sits at the intersection between financial regulation and blockchain technology.

Crypto creates a unique ownership problem.

Control of a digital asset ultimately depends on control of cryptographic keys.

Lose access to a private key and the asset may become inaccessible.

Allow unauthorized access and the asset can potentially be transferred irreversibly.

Institutional investors therefore need more than:

a secure wallet.

They need systems that satisfy:

regulators;

auditors;

boards;

risk committees;

fund administrators;

insurers;

and institutional clients.

That makes custody one of the clearest places where traditional banking regulation can intersect with crypto infrastructure.

MEXC Analyst View: The Next Phase of Crypto Adoption Is About Institutions, Not Just Tokens

According to MEXC senior crypto industry analyst Priya Sharma, the significance of Builders Bank is not that another technology company wants to attach the word “bank” to a crypto product. The more important development is that digital-asset businesses increasingly want their infrastructure to sit directly inside established federal regulatory structures.

Sharma notes that the first phase of institutional crypto adoption focused heavily on access: investors wanted ways to buy Bitcoin, trade digital assets and gain exposure through familiar financial products. The next phase is increasingly focused on infrastructure. Institutions need answers to harder questions around custody, settlement, collateral, legal ownership and regulatory accountability.

Builders Bank fits that transition. If approved, Block would not merely offer another Bitcoin feature to consumers. It would gain a federally supervised vehicle designed for safeguarding assets and performing fiduciary functions. That distinction could matter more to institutional adoption than another retail-facing crypto product.

Why Federal Supervision Matters for Institutional Clients

A pension fund, asset manager or financial institution evaluates custody differently from a retail user.

They may ask:

Who regulates the custodian?

How are client assets segregated?

What controls govern private keys?

What happens if the custodian becomes insolvent?

Who can authorize a withdrawal?

How are suspicious transactions monitored?

What audit trails exist?

How are operational risks managed?

Federal supervision does not eliminate those risks.

But it creates a clearer framework for answering them.

For large financial institutions, regulatory clarity can itself be part of the product.

Does This Mean Block Is Becoming a Crypto Bank?

Only in a limited sense.

If the OCC approves Builders Bank, Block would control an OCC-supervised national trust bank with digital-asset custody capabilities.

But calling Block simply a “crypto bank” would hide important distinctions.

Builders Bank would not:

accept ordinary deposits;

offer savings accounts;

make mortgages;

or operate a conventional lending business.

A more accurate description would be:

Block is trying to add a federally regulated digital-asset custody bank to its financial ecosystem.

Could Builders Bank Connect Cash App, Bitkey and Block's Other Bitcoin Businesses?

Potentially, but readers should distinguish strategic possibilities from announced products.

Block has not said that Builders Bank will automatically custody every user's Cash App Bitcoin or replace Bitkey's self-custody model.

In fact, Bitkey is built around self-custody, which is conceptually different from institutional custody.

Still, Block's collection of businesses gives it several different ways of interacting with Bitcoin:

That creates optionality.

Block can potentially serve users who want:

self-custody

and institutions that want:

regulated custody.

The two models do not have to replace each other.

Self-Custody vs Bank Custody

Builders Bank also illustrates one of Bitcoin's central tensions.

Bitcoin was designed so users can control assets without relying on a bank.

Yet institutional Bitcoin adoption increasingly depends on regulated banks and custodians.

Both can be rational.

Self-custody

User controls keys.

Advantages can include:

direct ownership control;

reduced custodian dependence;

permissionless transfers.

Risks include:

key loss;

poor backup procedures;

personal security failures.

Institutional custody

Custodian controls or manages key infrastructure under contractual and regulatory arrangements.

Advantages can include:

professional controls;

governance;

reporting;

institutional compliance.

Risks include:

counterparty exposure;

operational failure;

custodian restrictions.

Bitcoin does not force every holder to choose the same model.

Its growing financial ecosystem increasingly supports both.

Why Stablecoin Custody Matters Too

Bitcoin receives most of the attention in Block's announcement, but stablecoins may eventually be just as important.

Stablecoins have evolved from exchange settlement assets into infrastructure for:

payments;

cross-border transfers;

corporate treasury;

tokenized markets;

and institutional settlement.

As regulated stablecoins become more integrated with traditional finance, institutions need custody providers that can safely hold them alongside other assets.

That creates a possible institutional portfolio:

Bitcoin

stablecoins

tokenized securities

traditional assets.

The institutions that can securely custody and settle across these categories could occupy a valuable position in the emerging financial stack.

Is Builders Bank Similar to OpenReserve?

There are similarities, but the strategies are materially different.

Both projects illustrate companies moving blockchain-related financial activities inside U.S. bank regulation.

But their stated ambitions differ.

Builders Bank

Primary announced focus:

custody and fiduciary services

including Bitcoin and stablecoins.

No deposits.

No lending.

OpenReserve

Proposed broader model:

tokenized deposits;

payments;

lending;

custody;

on-chain settlement;

tokenized capital markets;

and other banking services.

This makes Builders Bank the more specialized model.

OpenReserve is attempting to create something closer to a blockchain-native banking platform.

Builders Bank is attempting to create a regulated custody layer inside Block's existing ecosystem.

Why This Matters Beyond Block

The larger trend is becoming difficult to ignore.

Crypto companies spent much of the previous decade building parallel financial infrastructure outside banks.

Now a growing number are trying to operate as regulated financial institutions themselves.

Meanwhile, traditional banks are moving in the opposite direction:

banks → crypto trading

banks → digital-asset custody

banks → stablecoins

banks → tokenized deposits

banks → tokenized securities.

Crypto companies and banks are therefore converging from opposite directions.

The eventual competitive landscape may not look like:

crypto versus banks.

It may look more like:

which regulated financial institutions operate digital assets most effectively?

What Happens Next for Builders Bank?

The immediate next step is regulatory review.

The OCC will evaluate the application before determining whether to approve the proposed charter.

Important future milestones include:

application review

↓

possible OCC conditional approval

↓

pre-opening requirements

↓

final regulatory clearances

↓

commencement of operations

That sequence matters.

An application is not an approval.

A conditional approval is not an operating bank.

And even regulatory approval does not guarantee that a new institution will immediately achieve meaningful scale.

What Investors and Crypto Users Should Watch

Several developments would materially change the Builders Bank story.

1. OCC approval

The most important near-term milestone.

Without it, Builders Bank remains a proposal.

2. Exact custody scope

Block has identified Bitcoin and stablecoins, but future disclosures may reveal what other digital assets or tokenized financial instruments Builders Bank could support.

3. Customer type

Will the institution mainly serve Block's own ecosystem?

Institutional clients?

External businesses?

Asset managers?

The answer will determine its commercial importance.

4. Integration with Block products

Any future connection between Builders Bank and Cash App, Bitkey, Proto or Block's merchant ecosystem could materially expand its relevance.

5. Stablecoin strategy

Custody is confirmed as part of the proposed scope.

Issuance is not.

Any future Block stablecoin announcement would therefore represent a separate and much larger development.

The Bigger Picture: Crypto Is Moving Inside the Bank Perimeter

For years, one of the biggest debates in crypto was whether banks would eventually adopt digital assets.

That question is becoming outdated.

Banks already trade, custody and tokenize digital assets.

A more interesting question is emerging:

Will major crypto and fintech companies increasingly become federally regulated financial institutions themselves?

Builders Bank is one more test.

Block is not abandoning Bitcoin's open financial model.

It is simultaneously building:

self-custody through Bitkey;

Bitcoin infrastructure through Proto;

consumer access through Cash App;

and now potentially federally regulated custody through Builders Bank.

If the OCC approves the application, those businesses could place Block in an unusual position spanning both ends of the Bitcoin custody spectrum:

hold your own keys

and

use a federally supervised custodian.

That combination may tell us more about the next phase of Bitcoin adoption than another new token ever could.

FAQ

What is Builders Bank?

Builders Bank & Trust, N.A. is a proposed uninsured national trust bank that Block has applied to establish under OCC supervision.

Who owns Builders Bank?

Builders Bank is being proposed by Block, Inc., the financial technology company co-founded by Jack Dorsey.

Has Builders Bank been approved?

No. Block submitted its OCC application on September 8, 2026. The proposed bank cannot begin operating until it receives the required regulatory approvals.

Will Builders Bank accept deposits?

No. Block says Builders Bank would be a non-deposit-taking national trust bank.

Will Builders Bank make loans?

No. The proposed institution would not make loans.

Would Builders Bank hold Bitcoin?

If approved, Block says Builders Bank would offer custody and related fiduciary services including for Bitcoin.

Would Builders Bank support stablecoins?

Yes, the proposed custody and fiduciary scope includes stablecoins.

Is Block launching its own stablecoin?

Block's Builders Bank announcement does not announce a Block-issued stablecoin. It refers to custody and related fiduciary services involving stablecoins.

Who would be CEO of Builders Bank?

Block says Lee Woolley, currently its Digital Asset Strategy Lead, would serve as president and CEO if Builders Bank is approved.

Is Builders Bank the same as Square Financial Services?

No. Square Financial Services is an existing Block-related banking entity with a different role. Builders Bank would be a separate national trust bank focused on custody and fiduciary services.

Why does Block want an OCC charter?

Block says the charter would provide a consistent federal supervisory framework for certain custody and related activities as its digital-asset business scales.

Why does Builders Bank matter for crypto?

It is another sign that Bitcoin, stablecoins and digital-asset custody are moving deeper into federally regulated U.S. financial infrastructure.

Disclaimer

This article is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment or legal advice. Builders Bank & Trust is a proposed institution and had not received final OCC approval as of September 9, 2026. Its regulatory status, business scope and launch plans may change as the application process develops.