Stripe and Advent reportedly offer to acquire PayPal for $60.50 per share
The potential deal would combine two of the biggest names in digital payments and could reshape the stablecoin landscape overnight.
Stripe and private equity giant Advent International have reportedly put forward an offer to acquire PayPal at $60.50 per share, a move that would rank among the largest fintech acquisitions in history if it goes through.
The offer price represents a significant premium to where PayPal was trading when acquisition rumors first surfaced in February 2026. At that point, PayPal’s market cap sat at roughly $43 billion.
How we got here
This didn’t come out of nowhere. Back in February 2026, Bloomberg reported that Stripe was exploring an acquisition of PayPal or its assets. That report alone was enough to send PayPal shares up 7% in a single session.
Stripe, for its part, has the firepower. The company’s valuation reached $159 billion following a tender offering that brought in heavyweight investors like Thrive Capital and Coatue.
Here’s the thing, though. As of mid-July 2026, no formal confirmation of the $60.50 per share figure or Advent’s specific participation had been publicly verified. The discussions appear to be real, but the gap between “exploratory talks” and “signed deal” in M&A is roughly the width of the Grand Canyon.
The stablecoin angle changes everything
Stripe has been aggressively building out its crypto infrastructure. The company acquired Bridge, a stablecoin-focused payments company, for $1.1 billion in 2025. It followed that up by scooping up Privy later in the same year.
PayPal, meanwhile, has its own stablecoin ambitions. The company developed PYUSD, a dollar-backed stablecoin designed to bring digital asset functionality to its massive base of everyday consumers.
What this means for investors
The regulatory hurdles here are real and potentially deal-breaking. Combining two of the world’s largest digital payments companies would attract intense scrutiny from antitrust regulators on both sides of the Atlantic.
PayPal shareholders face a different calculus. The $60.50 per share price represents a meaningful premium over where the stock traded during the initial February rumors, but PayPal was once a $300 billion company.