Ripple Reportedly Offered Up to $5 Billion to Acquire Circle

Ripple made an acquisition offer valued between $4 billion and $5 billion to stablecoin issuer Circle, but the proposal was rejected as too low, according to a Bloomberg report citing anonymous sources.

While Circle declined the offer, the report noted that Ripple “remains interested” in pursuing a potential deal.

The development comes just weeks after Circle filed a prospectus for an initial public offering. The company was previously valued at $9 billion during a failed SPAC merger attempt in 2022.

While Circle officially registered its IPO with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on April 1, insiders told the Journal the company is now “waiting anxiously” before advancing further. No details have been disclosed on the number of shares to be offered or the initial price, though the firm plans to trade under the ticker CRCL.

According to the firm’s S-1 filing with the SEC, Circle booked $155.7 million in net income for 2024, a steep drop from $267.6 million in 2023. Though this reflects a sharp rebound from the $768.8 million loss in 2022, some observers see troubling signs when comparing Circle’s performance to its offshore rival Tether, which reported $13 billion in profits for the same period — most of it from U.S. Treasury yield.

Circle issues USDC, the second-largest U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin by market supply, behind Tether’s USDT. Ripple entered the stablecoin space earlier this year with the launch of RLUSD.

Neither company responded to direct requests for comment. However, when asked about possible acquisitions last month, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse told Bloomberg the firm is open to buying blockchain infrastructure companies.

Elsewhere, Circle denied reports suggesting it is pursuing a U.S. federal bank charter, according to a statement from the company’s chief strategy officer, Dante Disparte.

Disparte said Circle is not seeking to become a federally chartered bank or to acquire a deposit-taking institution. Instead, the company is preparing to align with future regulatory requirements for payment stablecoins, which could involve registering under a federal or state trust charter or obtaining a nonbank license.

His statement follows a report that named Circle among several crypto firms—alongside Coinbase, BitGo, and Paxos—as exploring banking licenses. Of those companies, only Coinbase confirmed it is weighing such a move. Circle and BitGo declined to comment.

While Circle has now denied current plans, the firm has previously expressed interest in a bank charter. In 2022, CEO Jeremy Allaire told Bloomberg that Circle was already in talks with regulators as part of its efforts to secure a charter “hopefully in the near future.”