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

Bitcoin Left Out as Stocks, Bonds and Gold Party on Global Monetary Easing

The crypto might need more than some modest rate cuts to embark on a new bull run.

Bitcoin excluded from rate cutting party (Unsplash/Getty images)

Markets

Polygon's POL (MATIC) Token Spikes 15% on Binance Listing

Polygon introduced last week POL. the upgraded version the network's token, migrating from its longstanding MATIC with some tokenomics changes.

Polygon's POL price (CoinDesk)

CoinDesk Indices

CoinDesk 20 Performance Update: ICP and RNDR Each Drop 3.6%, Leading Index Lower

The CoinDesk 20 inched down despite a 10.6% gain by Polygon.

9am CoinDesk 20 Update for 2024-09-13: laggards

Markets

Odds of 50 Basis Point Fed Rate Cut Next Week Jump to 45%

A decent jobs report last week and speedier than expected inflation data this week had most assuming the U.S central bank would initially proceed cautiously as it begins a monetary easing cycle.

Rate cut size next week comes into question (Bruce Mars/Unsplash)

Markets

Michael Saylor's MicroStrategy Purchased 18.3K More Bitcoins for $1.1B

The firms holdings have risen to 244,8000 bitcoins worth about $14 billion at current prices.

MicroStrategy executive chairman and co-founder Michael Saylor. (Danny Nelson/CoinDesk)

Finance

Stablecoins Increasingly Used for Savings, Payments in Emerging Countries, but Crypto Trading Still Leads: Report

Commissioned by Brevan Howard and Castle Island Hill, the survey covered more than 2,500 crypto users in Brazil, Nigeria, Turkey, Indonesia and India.

a hundred dollar bill

CoinDesk Indices

CoinDesk 20 Performance Update: XRP Rallies 5.3%, Leading Index Higher

NEAR also jumped 5.0%, joining Ripple as a top performer.

9am CoinDesk 20 Update for 2024-09-12: leaders

Markets

XRP Spikes 8% as Grayscale Launches XRP Trust in the U.S.

The closed-end fund will offer investors exposure to XRP tokens.

Grayscale ad (Grayscale)

Policy

UK Introduces Bill to Clarify Crypto's Legal Status

The Labour government said the bill will give owners of bitcoin and other digital assets greater legal protection.

(Drop of Light/Shutterstock)

Markets

Bitcoin Decouples From Gold as Crypto Continues in Bearish Phase

Another technical indicator suggests even tougher times could be in the cards for the crypto market.

BTC bearish phase (CryptoQuant)