Israel’s Largest Bank Is Taking Another Run at Crypto — And This Time It’s Going Bigger

Israel’s biggest bank is preparing to put crypto trading back inside a familiar place: the banking app already sitting on its customers’ phones.

Cointelegraph reports that Bank Leumi has tapped Galaxy to support trading in Bitcoin, Ether and Solana. The service is expected to let both Leumi customers and users of its Pepper mobile-banking arm buy, hold and sell the three assets through a dedicated, secured section of the Leumi Trade app, with a launch targeted for early 2027.

The companies said the rollout would make Leumi the first Israeli bank to offer digital-asset trading directly to customers.

That is a meaningful expansion of the usual bank-and-crypto experiment. Bitcoin is the obvious starting point, but adding Ether and Solana would give ordinary bank customers access to three of the market’s most important networks without first moving money to a standalone exchange.

The report identifies Galaxy as the infrastructure partner rather than the consumer-facing brand. Execution and related trading services would run through GalaxyOne Institutional, while Galaxy’s custody infrastructure — the platform formerly known as GK8 — would support the bank’s digital-asset operations.

Leumi would keep the customer relationship inside its own app while leaning on a crypto specialist for the machinery behind the trades.

The timing also keeps expectations grounded. The service is planned for early 2027, so the bank’s millions of retail and business customers are looking at a proposed launch path rather than a product they can use today.

Israel’s Largest Bank Will Give Bitcoin Trading Another Try https://t.co/4DYisxBEaY

— Decrypt (@DecryptMedia) August 14, 2026

The word “back” matters here. In 2022, Leumi’s Pepper Invest platform announced a partnership with Paxos for Bitcoin and Ether trading, subject to regulatory approval.

That earlier plan paired crypto access with automatic handling of Israeli tax obligations, removing one of the practical headaches that keeps many first-time buyers away.

Decrypt’s account of the new effort frames it as another attempt by the bank to bring Bitcoin trading to customers. Leumi’s 2022 plan with Paxos covered Bitcoin and Ether but never launched because it did not receive the necessary regulatory approval.

This time, the proposed asset list is broader, Galaxy brings institutional trading and custody infrastructure to the table, and the launch still depends on approval from the Bank of Israel.

The bank route does not eliminate crypto’s price risk, custody questions or regulatory uncertainty. It does change the user experience.

Customers would be dealing with an institution they already know, funding purchases from an existing account and viewing crypto alongside traditional financial products. The service would sit in a secured area of Leumi Trade instead of sending customers to a separate crypto exchange.

Decrypt’s framing highlights the larger shift: a bank that once treated digital assets cautiously is still looking for a workable route to customer access. Israel’s regulatory environment has also become more defined since the first attempt, with custody, customer-asset segregation and capital standards now clearer for licensed providers.

The new setup moves beyond the earlier Bitcoin-and-Ether pairing by adding Solana.

That broader lineup raises the stakes for execution. GalaxyOne Institutional is intended to handle execution, while GK8 supplies the custody layer behind the bank-facing service.

Leumi would still need clear pricing, custody terms, risk disclosures and tax handling if it wants the experience to feel as straightforward as buying a traditional investment.

For customers, the appeal is convenience rather than anonymity or crypto-native independence. The tradeoff is that the bank and its partners remain in the middle of every purchase, sale and custody decision.

JUST IN: 🇮🇱 Israel's largest bank is entering Bitcoin.

Bank Leumi will allow customers to buy, hold and sell Bitcoin directly through its banking app.

The service is expected to launch in early 2027. 👀 pic.twitter.com/Z50chbeGah

— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) August 14, 2026

For Bank Leumi, working with a specialist reduces the need to build every trading, liquidity and custody component from scratch. For Galaxy, the arrangement is another bridge into mainstream finance: its infrastructure can sit behind a bank-branded customer experience rather than asking users to adopt a crypto-native platform.

The asset mix is also telling. Bitcoin remains the gateway asset.

Ether adds exposure to the largest smart-contract ecosystem, while Solana gives the planned service a faster-growing network with a large retail following. Offering all three would make this more than a token Bitcoin pilot.

Nothing is live yet, and the early-2027 target leaves room for the launch plan, supported assets and regulatory conditions to change. The direction is nevertheless clear.

A major bank is preparing to make crypto trading look like another button in the banking app instead of a fringe product kept outside its walls.

That may be the biggest adoption signal in the story: a traditional bank trying to make three major digital assets feel ordinary.

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