Why Circle? Well, maybe because Ripple’s own stablecoin, RLUSD, hasn’t exactly set the crypto world ablaze. Launched just last December, it has reached a modest market cap of $317 million. In contrast, USDC commands a staggering $61.5 billion. Snapping it up would instantly catapult Ripple into the big leagues, but Circle’s IPO plans complicate the dance.

According to Bloomberg, Ripple initially floated an offer in the $4–5 billion range, which Circle swiftly rejected. The latest word on the street is that the company is now bidding higher.

So I guess here’s Ripple’s business recipe in a nutshell: issue a mountain of tokens, keep a hefty chunk for yourself (as of Q3 2024, Ripple held about 4.4 billion XRP, worth about $10 billion, plus another 38.9 billion XRP worth nearly $86 billion locked away in escrow), and use your crypto riches to buy whatever “legitimate” business catches your fancy. Perhaps Ripple’s executives are visionaries, playing chess while the rest fumble with checkers. Or maybe they’re just tossing billions around and hoping something finally sticks.

Meanwhile, Visa has teamed up with Stripe-owned Bridge to launch stablecoin-linked Visa cards across six Latin American countries, enabling users to shop at any of Visa’s 150 million+ merchant locations using their stablecoin balances. Bridge handles the backend, converting crypto to local currency for merchants so the process feels just like a regular card transaction. The companies plan to expand this service to Europe, Africa and Asia in the coming months.