Share this article
Circle Has Explored Potential $5B Sale to Coinbase or Ripple Instead of IPO: Report
The stablecoin issuer took part in informal talks over a potential sale from which it was seeking at least $5 billion.
Updated May 20, 2025, 2:00 p.m. Published May 20, 2025, 10:02 a.m.
Make us preferred on Google
What to know:
- Circle, which filed for an initial public offering (IPO) last month, has explored the alternative of a sale to Coinbase or Ripple, Fortune reported.
- Circle took part in informal talks over a potential sale from which it was seeking at least $5 billion.
- This figure would be line with the company's valuation by investment banks JPMorgan and Citi, which Circle had hired to help with its IPO.
Stablecoin issuer Circle, which filed for an initial public offering (IPO) last month, has explored the alternative of a sale to crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN) or payments company Ripple, according to a Monday report by Fortune.
The New York-based issuer of USDC, the second-largest stablecoin, took part in informal talks over a potential sale from which it was seeking at least $5 billion, Fortune reported, citing people who asked not to be identified.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today. See all newsletters
This figure would be line with the company's valuation by investment banks JPMorgan and Citi, which Circle had hired to help with the IPO.
Coinbase holds a minority share in Circle, and the two companies share revenue from USDC's reserve interest income. Ripple recently debuted its own stablecoin, RLUSD. An offer by Ripple to buy Circle was rejected, Bloomberg reported last month.
Circle said in an emailed statement that it "is not for sale," and remains committed to going public, Fortune said. The company aborted a previous attempt at going public via a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) merger in 2021.
Read More: Coinbase Shares Could See $16B of Buying Pressure From S&P 500 Index Inclusion: Bernstein
Більше для вас
Specialized AI detects 92% of real-world DeFi exploits
New research claims specialized AI dramatically outperforms general-purpose models at detecting exploited DeFi vulnerabilities.
Що варто знати:
- A purpose-built AI security agent detected vulnerabilities in 92% of 90 exploited DeFi contracts ($96.8 million in exploit value), compared with 34% and $7.5 million for a baseline GPT-5.1-based coding agent running on the same underlying model.
- The gap came from domain-specific security methodology layered on top of the model, not differences in core AI capability, according to the report.
- The findings come as prior research from Anthropic and OpenAI shows AI agents can execute end-to-end smart contract exploits at low cost, accelerating concerns that offensive AI capabilities are scaling faster than defensive adoption.
Top Stories
