Ripple CEO denies Ripple's intention to acquire Circle, saying related reports are false

Odaily Planet Daily News Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse publicly stated at an event in Las Vegas that the company had never sought to acquire stablecoin issuer Circle, refuting previous media reports that Ripple had offered up to $5 billion. Earlier, Bloomberg quoted sources as saying that Ripple had offered $4 billion to $5 billion to acquire USDC issuer Circle, but was rejected as the offer was considered too low. Coinbase also reportedly made a bid. In response, a Circle spokesperson responded that "the company is not selling." Circle plans to go public as early as this week with CRCL as the code, with a valuation of $7.2 billion, and plans to issue 32 million Class A common shares with an issue price range of $27-28. Previously, the company canceled its SPAC merger listing plan with a valuation of $9 billion in 2022. It is worth mentioning that Ripple announced the launch of the dollar-pegged stablecoin RLUSD in April last year and was approved by the New York Department of Financial Services in December last year. The current market value of RLUSD is US$310 million, which is still far from USDC's US$61.5 billion. Ripple previously stated that future mergers and acquisitions will focus on companies that connect traditional finance and the crypto ecosystem, such as payment processors and fiat currency deposit and withdrawal service providers. In April this year, Ripple acquired Hidden Road, an institutional settlement network with a clearing scale of US$3 trillion, for US$1.25 billion, which was its largest acquisition until it was surpassed by Coinbase's acquisition of Deribit. (TheBlock)