Stripe Paypal deal would bring crypto and stablecoin payments mainstream

Stripe which is known for servicing cross border payments including crypto and stablecoin payments, fiat to crypto ramps, allowing businesses to accept digital currencies using blockchain, has along with Advent International made an offer to buy Paypal, which operates globally including in the GCC countries.

According to Reuters, the deal is valued at $53.4 billion. The companies made a $60.50 per share cash offer for the payments firm, according to people familiar with the deal, who asked not to be named because the details are private. Stripe, Advent and Block
are contributing $17 billion in equity for the offer, the people said. Block, Inc. (formerly Square, Inc.) is a major American financial technology (fintech) company founded by Jack Dorsey and Jim McKelvey.

PayPal’s board will meet as soon as July 20 to discuss the offer, the people said.The deal values PayPal at a 28% premium. PayPal hasn’t responded to the offer, which would see Stripe and Advent jointly own the company and hold equal stakes.

This could be a significant move that would bring stablecoin and crypto payments into the mainstream economy. This could also be one of the largest fintech mergers in history, combining the world’s two largest online payment platforms into a single powerhouse.

Stripe primarily focuses on merchant infrastructure and backend payment processing (the tools businesses use to accept payments). PayPal dominates the consumer side (digital wallets, consumer trust, and hundreds of millions of active accounts). Together, they would control a massive end-to-end commerce flow, from the checkout button on a website all the way to the merchant’s bank account. The combined entity would process around (\$3.7) trillion in annual payment volume, which equates to roughly (3\%) of global GDP.

Stefan Deiss, Co Founder and CEO of The Hashgraph Group commenting on the news stated, ” This deal signals that mainstream payments infrastructure is converging around crypto rails in a bigger way than ever. A combined Stripe-PayPal entity would give over 400 million consumers seamless access to both Bitcoin via PayPal’s Paxos integration and stablecoin infrastructure via Stripe’s Bridge acquisition. That kind of reach normalizes crypto adoption at scale.”