Stephen Alpher

Stephen is CoinDesk's managing editor for Markets. He previously served as managing editor at Seeking Alpha. A native of suburban Washington, D.C., Stephen went to the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, majoring in finance. He holds BTC above CoinDesk’s disclosure threshold of $1,000.

Stephen Alpher

Latest from Stephen Alpher


Markets

XRP Ledger ‘Clawback’ Goes Live in Boost For Ripple USD Trading

Clawback refers to tokens that have a feature allowing the issuer to reclaim coins from user wallets under certain conditions.

Ripple Labs maintains XRP. (Ripple Labs)

Finance

Tether Brings Its $140B USDT Stablecoin to Bitcoin and Lightning Networks

Stablecoins are increasingly popular for everyday uses like payments, remittances and savings, and Tether's expansion aims to spur activity to the Bitcoin-based ecosystem.

Satoshi Nakamoto published the Bitcoin white paper on Halloween Day in 2008. (Jonathan Borba/Unsplash, modified by CoinDesk)

Markets

Bitcoin Rally to Record High Knee-Capped as Trump Tariff Threat Hits Risk Assets

The president said he intends to impose 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada on February 1.

Bitcoin moved lower after Trump tariff threat (Shutterstock)

Finance

OpenAI's Reported $340B Valuation Could Bode Well for AI-Linked Crypto

Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI is in talks to raise new $40 billion funding, at a valuation of $340 billion.

OpenAI CEO Samuel Altman (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Policy

Czech National Bank Approves Proposal to Study Bitcoin as Reserve Asset

ECB President Lagarde said she's "confident" bitcoin will not be a part of the assets of any EU central bank.

Czech Republic flag ( Resource Database / Unsplash)

Tech

Cardano’s Plomin Hard Fork Goes Live, Ushering in On-Chain Governance

Plomin comes just four months after Cardano’s Chang hard fork, which put many of the mechanisms in place for Wednesday’s upgrade.

Charles Hoskinson, CEO and founder of IOHK, the lead developer of Cardano.

Markets

Tesla Marked Up Bitcoin Holdings Valuation in Q4, Booking a $600M Gain

New FASB rules allow for corporate bitcoin owners to mark those assets to market.

Elon Musk (Daniel Oberhaus/Flickr)

Markets

Fed Holds Rates Steady, Takes Note of Elevated Inflation

Bitcoin initially fell on hawkish language in the Fed's policy statement, but later recovered.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell (House Financial Services Committee)

Markets

Canary Capital's ETF Plans Took Shape Thanks to Trump

Opened last October by ex-Valkyrie founder and CEO Steven McClurg, Canary quickly filed back-to-back applications for four crypto-related exchange-traded funds (ETF).

Canary Capital founder and CEO Steve McClurg (Danny Nelson/CoinDesk)

Finance

Bitcoin Miner Riot Platforms Targeted by Second Activist Investor: Reuters

The move comes after another activist investor, Starboard, had taken a stake in the miner late last year.

(Shutterstock)