Circle Seeking at Least $5,000,000,000 for Coinbase Acquisition, Potentially Nixing IPO Plans: Report

Ripple and Coinbase have both reportedly participated in informal talks to acquire the stablecoin issuer Circle.

Fortune, citing four anonymous banking and private equity executives, reports that Circle wants at least $5 billion for a sale.

The USDC issuer has been gearing up for an initial public offering (IPO), but the firm would reportedly scuttle those plans should an acquisition materialize. The stablecoin giant filed an S-1 registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last month.

Circle initially announced plans to go public back in 2021, via a merger with Concord Acquisition Corp, a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). Those plans were called off in December 2022.

Circle and Coinbase already have a long history: The firms co-created USDC in 2018 and jointly managed the asset through the Centre Consortium until 2023.

That year, Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire announced that his company would bring all of USDC’s governance and operations responsibilities in-house to streamline management of the stablecoin.

Coinbase said at the time that it would purchase an equity stake in Circle, and the stablecoin issuer’s April S-1 registration statement indicates the top US crypto exchange receives revenue generated from USDC reserves. Coinbase became a public company in April 2021.

Ripple already submitted an offer to purchase Circle with a bid of $4-5 billion, but the stablecoin issuer rejected the number, Fortune reports.