Finst

Ripple mega-deal off the table: Circle rejects $5 billion takeover bid

Ripple Labs, the company behind the XRP cryptocurrency, seems to be picking up speed.

By Mike Hesp
• 2 min read
Ripple mega-deal off the table: Circle rejects $5 billion takeover bid

Ripple Labs, the company behind the XRP cryptocurrency, seems to be picking up speed. After launching the first XRP-Tracker funds in Asia and unveiling a new custody service for digital assets, the expansion was clearly the plan. But a takeover that could have rewritten crypto history is off the table now.

According to a Bloomberg News report, Ripple offered up to $5 billion to acquire Circle, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin. Circle, however, rejected the proposal. Despite the multibillion-dollar figure, the company — which runs the world’s second-largest dollar stablecoin — simply didn’t think the bid was high enough. Ripple does not appear to plan an improved offer for now.

Ripple has been trying to gain a foothold in the stablecoin market for a while. In December last year it launched its own digital dollar variant, RLUSD. But with a current market cap of about $317 million, that newcomer is still far behind USDC, which stands at an impressive $61 billion.

Ripple itself is valued at about $11 billion in 2024 — a valuation CEO Brad Garlinghouse called “overstated” earlier this year.

Although the Circle deal didn’t go through, Ripple did have success on another front. In early April it acquired Hidden Road, a crypto brokerage, for a tidy $1.25 billion. That acquisition could significantly accelerate adoption of both XRP and the underlying XRPL network.

“This is a huge step for Ripple, but also a major development for the entire sector,” Garlinghouse told CNBC in an interview.

And the ambitions don’t stop there: recently the first XRP Futures ETF was launched in the U.S. And who knows what the future holds, according to the decentralized betting platform Polymarket, the odds of the SEC approving a XRP Spot ETF in 2025 have climbed to 79 percent."

Disclaimer: This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, legal, or tax advice. The information provided may be incomplete, inaccurate, or outdated and should not be relied upon as such. Nothing on this website should be considered a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any cryptocurrency. Investing in crypto-assets involves risk of loss.