As reported previously, Ripple is looking at buying stablecoin firm Circle.

The San Francisco-based fintech company made a US$5 billion (AU$7.75 billion) takeover offer, which was rejected.

As reported previously, fintech company Ripple made a US$5 billion takeover bid for stablecoin firm Circle, but the San Francisco-based company rejected the offer.

Now, rumors have swirled that Ripple made a second, much more generous offer of US$20 billion.

However, according to a report by Fortune, it may not come to that. The magazine cited sources who claim that Circle is considering selling itself to either Ripple or crypto exchange Coinbase.

People who asked to remain anonymous say Circle is looking for at least US$5 billion. Fortune quotes one person saying that Circle would be more than happy to sell to Coinbase.

Another person said that “things change week by week”, although this doesn’t tell us much, it shows that the situation remains fluid.

According to Fortune, Circle told the magazine that the company is “not for sale” and that its “long-term goals remain the same”. Meaning the IPO should still go ahead as planned.

USDC, the stablecoin issued by Circle, is the second largest stablecoin with a market cap of US$60 billion and a 24-hour volume of US$13 billion. For comparison, Tether (USDT) has a market cap of US$305 billion and a 24-hour volume of US$93 billion.

Ripple has its own stablecoin, RLUSD, but it is far behind in market cap (US$312 million; AU$483 million) and daily volume (US$313 million; AU$485 million).

If Ripple were to acquire Circle, analysts have suggested that XRP could benefit greatly. All Things XRP said on Crypto Twitter that Ripple is committed to “dominate payments, own stablecoin rails, and make XRP the default bridge”.

Ripple acquired prime-brokerage Hidden Road at US$1.25 billion in April. The company also just rolled out its cross-border payments platform in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in cooperation with Zand Bank and Mamo.

It remains to be seen if Coinbase or Ripple gets to seal the deal; it would be bullish for either company and for the entire crypto sector.

Coinbase and Circle co-founded the Centre Consortium in 2018 to issue the USDC stablecoin; when that venture ended in 2023, Coinbase received an equity stake in Circle and Circle took over sole governance of USDC.