Stripe is considering acquiring PayPal.

Stripe – the payments giant that is accelerating its foray into the crypto market – is reportedly eyeing a deal to acquire all or part of PayPal, according to Bloomberg.

Citing anonymous sources, Bloomberg reported that Stripe had expressed initial interest in potentially acquiring PayPal or some of the veteran digital payments company's assets.

Also on that day, Stripe announced it had reached an agreement with investors to conduct a tender offer, aimed at providing liquidation for current and former employees, at a valuation of $159 billion. The majority of the Capital for this transaction will come from investors such as Thrive Capital, Coatue, and a16z. Stripe will also use a portion of its own Capital to buy back shares.

PayPal was one of the pioneers of online payments in the 1990s, contributing to the popularization of online financial transactions and making e-wallets commonplace. However, in the wave of digital assets, PayPal, despite its efforts to adapt, has not always found it easy to expand its market share under competitive pressure from new rivals like Stripe.

Both PayPal and Stripe are betting on crypto, particularly stablecoins. Last year, Stripe acquired the stablecoin platform Bridge; Bridge subsequently received conditional approval from the OCC to move toward a federally regulated national banking model.

Meanwhile, PayPal launched the PYUSD stablecoin in 2023 through a partnership with Paxos. By December, Paxos received a federal banking license from the OCC. At that time, Paxos stated that PYUSD had become the largest USD Peg stablecoin issued under federal regulatory oversight, with a market Capital of approximately $3.8 billion.

A recent PayPal survey found that nearly 85% of participants believe that crypto payments will become widespread within the next five years. Last year, the company also announced plans to add new peer-to-peer payment features, while expanding support for bitcoin, ETH , and stablecoins.