Bank Leumi Announces Crypto Trading for Early 2027, With Galaxy as Plumbing — and a 2022 Attempt It Never Shipped

Bank Leumi, Israel's largest bank by assets, says it intends to let customers buy and sell bitcoin, ether and solana through its investment app starting in early 2027. The Block, which reported the plan on Aug. 14 citing a bank statement, said the offering will be available to Leumi customers and to users of PEPPER, the bank's mobile digital banking arm, and will cover BTC, ETH, SOL and other "selected" cryptocurrencies the bank did not name.

The counterparty is Galaxy Digital, the Mike Novogratz–led firm, which The Block reports will supply the institutional trading and custody infrastructure behind the product. Neither the commercial terms of that arrangement, the fee structure for customers, nor the identity of the additional "selected" assets has been disclosed.

The bank's framing came from Maya Ravia, its Head of Strategy, quoted in the statement: "This initiative represents a significant pillar of the bank's innovation strategy and enables us to provide customers with simple, secure, and regulated access to trading digital assets through one of the world's leading technological infrastructures." Ravia added that Leumi believes "digital assets are gradually becoming an integral part of the global financial system." That is the bank characterizing its own product and its own vendor, and should be read as such.

The part the announcement doesn't lead with

This is Leumi's second run at the same product. In 2022, the bank announced a partnership with Paxos to offer customers crypto trading. The Block reports that the launch "appears" never to have moved forward. Decrypt's coverage the same afternoon framed the news the same way — as Israel's largest bank giving bitcoin trading "another try." Neither outlet reports an explanation from Leumi for why the Paxos version stalled, and neither indicates Paxos has any role in the new arrangement.

That gap matters for how much weight to put on the 2027 date. What has been announced is an intention, roughly five months out at the earliest, from an institution that announced a comparable intention four years ago and did not deliver it.

Market context, with the caveats attached

For scale, The Block cites Chainalysis data putting the estimated on-chain crypto value received in Israel at about $22 billion over the 12 months ending June 2025. Across the Middle East and North Africa, the same data set puts on-chain activity above $500 billion for that period, up 33% year over year — growth that, per Chainalysis, trailed other developing regions including Asia-Pacific and Latin America.

Two caveats travel with those numbers. They are vendor estimates from a commercial blockchain analytics firm whose customers include banks and governments, and whose methodology is not public in detail. And the measurement window closed in June 2025 — more than a year before this announcement.

As for the assets themselves: the price widget on Decrypt's page at the time of publication showed bitcoin at $63,137, ether at $1,884.36 and solana at $75.55. That is site chrome rather than reporting, but it establishes the backdrop — Leumi is committing to a 2027 launch into a market well off its highs, not into a mania.

Key facts

• Bank Leumi plans to offer BTC, ETH, SOL and unspecified other "selected" cryptocurrencies via its investment app beginning early 2027 — The Block, citing a Leumi statement
• Access extends to Leumi customers and users of PEPPER, its mobile digital banking arm — The Block
• Galaxy Digital will provide institutional trading and custody infrastructure — The Block
• Leumi announced a crypto trading partnership with Paxos in 2022; the launch appears never to have proceeded — The Block; framing corroborated by Decrypt
• Israel: ~$22B in on-chain crypto value received, 12 months ending June 2025 — Chainalysis, via The Block
• MENA region: >$500B on-chain activity, +33% year over year, trailing APAC and Latin America — Chainalysis, via The Block
• Galaxy Digital (GLXY) was quoted up 2.82% in The Block's inline market widget on the day; no causal link to the announcement has been established
• BTC $63,137 / ETH $1,884.36 / SOL $75.55 — Decrypt price widget at publication time

The real-world read

The reversal is the story, and it's a soft one. A bank re-announcing a product it already announced in 2022 is not the same as a bank launching a product. The tell is in the reporting itself: The Block hedges with "it appears the launch never moved forward," meaning Leumi has not publicly accounted for what happened to the Paxos plan. Until it does, "early 2027" is a target, not a commitment.

The quote is doing marketing work. Calling Galaxy "one of the world's leading technological infrastructures" is a bank promoting the vendor it just hired, inside a statement the bank wrote. "Simple, secure, and regulated" is a claim, not a disclosure — no regulator is named, no approval or licence is cited, and neither report indicates the Bank of Israel or the Israel Securities Authority has signed off on anything. For a regulated bank offering retail crypto trading, that silence is conspicuous.

Mechanics are almost entirely absent. Nothing has been said about fees, spreads, minimums, or tax reporting. Nothing has been said about whether customers will be able to withdraw coins to their own wallets or will hold book-entry positions against Galaxy's custody — a meaningful difference, and one that "custody infrastructure" alone does not settle. The phrase "selected cryptocurrencies" beyond the three named assets is left undefined. Israeli banks' long-standing friction over accepting funds returning from crypto exchanges also goes unaddressed.

Watch whose numbers you're quoting. The $22 billion and $500 billion figures come from Chainalysis, a company that sells crypto-tracing tools into exactly this market and has an interest in the numbers looking large. They are cited here because they are the only market-size figures on the table, not because they are independently verified.

Provenance, plainly. Both accounts are secondary. The underlying document is Leumi's own statement — an interested party describing its own launch — and neither outlet published it in full. There is no independent analyst, no competitor, and no regulator quoted anywhere in this coverage. Nothing here was sponsored, but nothing here is adversarial either. Separately, The Block discloses that Foresight Ventures has been its majority investor since November 2023 and that Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight; The Block says it operates independently.

Opinion, and whose

• Maya Ravia, Bank Leumi Head of Strategy: that digital assets are "gradually becoming an integral part of the global financial system," and that the initiative is "a significant pillar" of the bank's innovation strategy. Forecast and self-assessment, from the bank announcing the product.
• The Block's implicit read: its framing of "the second time it's announced efforts to bring crypto trading to customers" positions this as a repeat attempt rather than a debut.
• Decrypt's implicit read: its headline — "Will Give Bitcoin Trading Another Try" — makes the same skeptical framing explicit.
• No one else has weighed in. No independent analyst estimate of demand, revenue, or likelihood of launch appears in either account.

Sources

• The Block — RT Watson, Aug. 14, 2026 ("Israel's largest bank taps Galaxy to offer bitcoin, ether and solana trading"): the core reporting — the 2027 timeline, PEPPER inclusion, Galaxy's role, the Ravia quote, the 2022 Paxos history, and the Chainalysis figures. Not sponsored. Carries a standing disclosure that Foresight Ventures is its majority investor and that Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight.
• Decrypt, Aug. 14, 2026 ("Israel's Largest Bank Will Give Bitcoin Trading Another Try"): corroborates the second-attempt framing; its captured page carried a live price ticker but no additional reporting detail. Not sponsored.
• Bank Leumi statement (via The Block): the primary document behind both accounts, and an interested party's description of its own product. Not published in full by either outlet.
• Chainalysis (via The Block): Israel and MENA on-chain volume estimates for the 12 months ending June 2025. Vendor data from a commercial analytics firm.

Nothing here is financial advice.