It would be genius for Ripple or Coinbase to buy Circle, and Circle might be trying to IPO to get ahead of this.**

It looks like Circle’s IPO is 25x oversubscribed, valuing the company at around $7b. If someone can buy it for even $12-13b, that’s a steal for what this business represents in 20 years.

Circle built the market structure before it formally existed in the U.S. (i.e. ahead of the GENIUS bill).

My prediction: Stripe, Square, Ripple, Coinbase, Robinhood - they’re all going to end up competing with each other for consumers, which is really good for the consumer, and really bad for margins.

The company that can build the most efficient infrastructure and sell it for cost-plus (with a thin margin on top) will take this market.

**Note that there are no official/confirmed reports of Coinbase pursuing an acquisition of Circle, but there is a bunch of rumors in the rumor mill that they are in acquisition discussions.