Chime bought its bank for $590 million; Block filed for one and left the price blank
On 8 September, Chime agreed to pay $590 million in cash for Stride Bank, its deposit partner of seven years, while Block filed to charter Builders Bank & Trust for bitcoin and stablecoin custody. Chime published its math, more than $100 million in net synergies; Block's filing sits on its thinnest line, where $1.9 billion of quarterly bitcoin revenue kept only $72 million as gross profit.
Vincent Jiang · 3 min read
Two fintechs quit the sponsor-bank model the same day
On 8 September 2026, Chime agreed to pay $590 million in cash for Stride Bank, the Enid, Oklahoma institution founded in 1913 that has partnered with Chime for more than seven years and is one of two banks holding its member deposits 1. The same day, Block disclosed an application to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for Builders Bank & Trust, N.A., an uninsured national trust bank that would custody the bitcoin and stablecoins Cash App and Square use 24.
Chime's old model split the roles neatly: it owned the customer, a partner bank owned the regulated plumbing underneath 3. Stride's toll now goes internal; the sponsor bank holding Cash App's deposits keeps collecting.
The buy route came with a receipt
Chime priced its door: roughly 1.5 times tangible book value, funded entirely from balance-sheet cash, immediately accretive to earnings per share, and carrying more than $100 million in projected net synergies from sponsor-bank fee savings, expanded lending and lower funding costs 1. The company calls the purchase "a faster and more proven path to full-stack ownership versus pursuing a de novo bank charter," and it pledged to keep assets below $10 billion for the foreseeable future 1.
The build route starts from a thin line
Builders Bank would take no deposits and make no loans, so the deposit plumbing under Cash App stays where it is 2. It would fold more than 50 state money-transmitter and virtual-currency licenses into one federal framework, run from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, with no branches 4.
What it touches is Block's thinnest line: bitcoin revenue of almost $1.9 billion in the second quarter of 2026, nearly 29% of the company's $6.6 billion total, which kept just over $72 million as gross profit, a margin under 4% 56.
Cash App transacts in one stablecoin, USDC, and that generates negligible revenue today 5. Neither the application nor the announcement puts a dollar figure on the savings.
Chime's route came priced; Block's bitcoin line keeps $72M of $1.9B
- Estimate
Data
| Value | |
|---|---|
| Block bitcoin revenue, Q2 2026 | $1,900M |
| Stride purchase price | $590M |
| Chime net synergies, projected (estimate) | $100M |
| Block bitcoin gross profit, Q2 2026 | $72M |
The gatekeeper owns the calendar
Both files sit with the OCC. Comptroller Jonathan Gould said on 19 August that the agency has received 40 new bank charter applications since January 2025, 23 of them with digital-asset business plans, an eightfold increase, and that a final stablecoin-issuer rule lands by November ahead of the GENIUS Act's 18 January 2027 effective date 7. The queue fills because the rails do: Open USD went live on 30 September with Coinbase, Mastercard, Shopify, Stripe and Visa committing more than $1 billion to liquidity 8.
Chime needs two regulators to say yes; Block's file must show capital and a wall
Chime needs approval from the OCC and the Federal Reserve for a close targeted in the first half of 2027; the stock added 9.5% in extended trading on the news 19.
The OCC will scrutinize two things closely in Block's file: whether the company holds enough capital to back the fiduciary activity it wants to run, and whether it can wall that activity off from Cash App's consumer-facing business 4. Chime bought the vault and published the receipt; Block filed for a smaller room and left the price blank.
Deepdive
AI-generated from this story and its cited sources. Not investment advice.
