Wells Fargo has filed a trademark application for the wordmark “WFUSD,” indicating potential plans to use the name in services tied to cryptocurrency, stablecoins, and digital assets.
The March 10 filing with the US Patent and Trademark Office has been accepted but is still awaiting assignment to an examining attorney, with the review process typically taking more than 10 months.
According to the application, the San Francisco-based bank intends to use the WFUSD trademark across multiple service categories covering software for financial transactions, cryptocurrency trading, exchange services, and blockchain-based payment processing.
The filing lists classes IC 009, IC 036, and IC 042, which include software for processing cryptocurrency, stablecoins, and other digital or blockchain-based assets.
Similar trademark filings have previously been made by other financial firms exploring blockchain products, including Western Union, which applied for a “WUUSD” trademark ahead of plans to launch a dollar-backed stablecoin on the Solana blockchain.
Banks have also used similar naming structures for different digital assets, such as JPMorgan’s “JPMD” token, which ultimately represented a tokenised deposit rather than a traditional dollar-pegged stablecoin.
Wells Fargo has been gradually expanding its involvement in digital assets, including providing clients with access to Bitcoin exchange-traded funds in 2024 and participating in industry discussions around potential joint stablecoin initiatives among major banks.
At the time of reporting, Bitcoin price was $70,388.31.