The news: Stripe and Advent are no longer pursuing their $50 billion bid for PayPal, per Bloomberg.

If the deal had gone through, it would have been one of the largest leveraged buyouts ever.

PayPal’s shares closed 12.71% lower on Friday.

How we got here: PayPal was vulnerable to a takeover after its stock value plummeted under former CEO Alex Chriss; his “transition year” strategies didn’t boost branded checkout or TPV’s performance.

With a weakened PayPal, Stripe saw an opportunity to buy a legacy player at a discounted price. It could have leveraged PayPal’s assets to supercharge its digital wallet, Link, and control a buy button that has deeper global reach. 

PayPal initially readied a defense for a possible takeover, but by August was reportedly participating in negotiations for a deal.

Implications for payment providers: Regardless of stock price, PayPal is a serious player in the payment ecosystem. It facilitates $1.9 trillion in global digital payment volume, per our forecast. 

And while PayPal’s buy button has ceded ground to the likes of Apple and Google Pay, it is still growing in key areas:

• PayPal ranks behind only Klarna and Affirm by share of US BNPL payment volume, at $30.89 billion.
• And Venmo Card and Pay with Venmo monthly actives grew over 50% and 30% YoY, respectively, per Q2 2026 earnings.

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