Prediction market all but rules out a Stripe-PayPal deal as suitors walk away
Traders on Polymarket, the cryptocurrency-based prediction market, have all but abandoned bets that Stripe will buy any part of PayPal Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:PYPL, XETRA:2PP) this year.
The contract asking whether Stripe will acquire any part of PayPal in 2026 has slumped to a 10% implied probability, down from a peak of around 70% reached during the summer.
A separate market on a full takeover of PayPal now prices the chance at just 6%.
The repricing came after Stripe, the privately held payments company, and Advent International, the buyout firm, abandoned their pursuit of PayPal, the payments group behind the eponymous digital wallet and the Venmo app.
The consortium had offered $60.50 a share in July, valuing PayPal at more than $53 billion and representing a premium of about 28% to the company's share price before the approach became public.
The bid was backed by roughly $50 billion in committed bank financing, which would have made it one of the biggest debt-funded acquisitions on record and the largest ever in the financial technology sector.
PayPal's board rejected the approach as inadequate within days, holding out for a price closer to $70 a share.
Talks continued into mid-August, but the buyers declined to raise their offer and ultimately withdrew.
PayPal shares fell below $54 in premarket trading, a drop of around 12%, wiping out the gains built up since takeover speculation first surfaced.
The collapse leaves chief executive Enrique Lores, who took charge in March, to prove that PayPal's standalone turnaround can deliver more value than the rejected bid.
Lores has reorganised the business into separate checkout, Venmo and payments units and pledged to cut at least $1.5 billion in costs over two to three years.
Stripe, valued at $159 billion in a February employee share sale and processing around $1.9 trillion in payments last year, had been seen as the most likely consolidator in the sector.
Block, the payments company formerly known as Square, was involved in early discussions but left before the formal offer was tabled.
The Polymarket contract does not settle until 31 December, leaving open the slim possibility that talks resume before the year is out.
