According to a Friday report by Fortune, Ripple is now competing with Coinbase for the acquisition of fintech company Circle.
The report, which cites unnamed private equity and banking executives, says that there have been information talks regarding a potential deal.
Last month, Bloomberg reported that Circle had rejected an acquisition offer of up to $5 billion from Ripple since the sum was deemed to be too small. Some social media accounts started spreading fake rumors about Ripple potentially upping the bid to $20 billion.
Circle would prefer to sell itself to Coinbase, according to one source cited by Fortune.
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The two companies already have a long track record of close collaboration. It is worth noting that Circle and Coinbase teamed up in 2018 in order to launch the extremely successful USD Coin (USDC) stablecoin via the jointly formed Center Consortium.
Fortune claims that Circle would actually be happy to be acquired by Coinbase. However, as of now, the company is moving forward with its plans to go public that were revealed earlier this year.
Ripple is also in a strong financial position to acquire Circle due to its enormous XRP holdings that are estimated to surpass $90 billion at current prices. As reported by U.Today, Bitwise President Teddy Fusaro stated that Ripple could acquire a lot of companies with its current XRP holdings.
Both Ripple and Circle recently announced massive acquisition deals. As reported by U.Today, the enterprise blockchain company bought prime brokerage Hidden Road for $1.25 billion. Meanwhile, Coinbase secured the largest M&A deal in crypto history by agreeing to buy Deribit for close to $3 billion.