Block seeks OCC trust charter for Bitcoin and stablecoin custody
Regulation & Gov ·
Jack Dorsey's payments company has filed with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for a national trust bank charter that would let it act as fiduciary for Bitcoin, stablecoins and other digital assets.
The filing, reported by The Block, places Block among a growing set of financial firms pursuing a federal trust designation rather than relying on a state-by-state licensing approach. A national trust charter from the OCC does not permit deposit-taking, but it puts the holder under continuous federal examination and capital oversight, giving institutional counterparties — hedge funds, registered advisers, broker-dealers — the kind of regulated custodian relationship many are required to use.
One practical driver behind the application is consolidation. According to Decrypt, Block currently manages its Bitcoin custody operations across more than 50 separate state money transmitter licenses, and a single federal charter would let it unify that fragmented compliance structure under one regulator instead of dozens of state regimes.
Block's move fits a wider pattern of crypto and crypto-adjacent firms turning to the OCC as the preferred route into the U.S. banking system. The agency has already granted a conditional trust charter to Anchorage Digital, and other applicants — including Citadel, Schwab and Fidelity-backed EDX Markets, Trump-linked World Liberty Financial for its USD1 stablecoin, and Circle, which recently won final approval to launch Circle National Trust — have all sought or received similar federal recognition. The OCC also charters firms such as Coinbase, Ripple and Kraken, making it the central gatekeeper for institutional digital-asset custody and stablecoin issuance in the U.S.
It remains unclear how long the OCC will take to review Block's application or what conditions, if any, might be attached, as has happened with other conditional approvals in this wave. Also unresolved is how Block's custody business would operate alongside its existing Bitcoin-focused products once a federal charter is in place, and whether the company plans to pursue a full commercial bank charter with deposit-taking authority down the line. Three distinct sources are tracking developments in this filing as the OCC's charter queue continues to grow.