Good morning & happy Wednesday! Today, we're breaking down what might be the most consequential FinTech story of 2026 so far: Stripe just hit a $159 billion valuation, published an annual letter that reads like a blueprint for the future of money, and on the very same day, Bloomberg reported the Collisons are eyeing an acquisition of all or parts of PayPal PYPL 0.00%' (~3,000 words deep dive into why Stripe doesn't actually need PayPal and that's exactly why it might buy it, the real strategic logic most coverage is missing, how Adyen fits into the picture, the Elon Musk angle, and what a deal would mean for the entire payments industry + lots of bonus reads & resources on Agentic Commerce, AI in Finance, etc. inside). PayPal peaked at $356B in 2021. It's now worth just $44B. Stripe just surpassed it in total payment volume for the first time. The age of the consumer payment brand may be ending, and this story tells you why. So let's jump straight into the colossal stuff '' The BIG...
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