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

BlackRock's BUIDL Becomes Largest Tokenized Treasury Fund Hitting $375M, Toppling Franklin Templeton's

BlackRock's first tokenized offering, created with Securitize, has captured almost 30% of the $1.3 billion tokenized Treasury market in just six weeks.

(Jim Henderson, modified by CoinDesk)

Finance

Tokenized Asset Issuer Backed Raises $9.5M as Crypto's RWA Race Heats Up

The fundraising will help accelerate Backed's private tokenization offering and onboard asset managers to blockchains, the company said.

Art installation reminiscent of digital ecosystems

Markets

Bitcoin Wavers Around $63K, Awaiting Hong Kong Spot Crypto ETF Debut

Despite muted anticipation for the new products, an executive of one of the issuers reportedly expects that the first-day issuance of the Hong Kong offerings will exceed the U.S. debut in January.

Bitcoin price on April 29 (CoinDesk)

Finance

MicroStrategy Q1 Operating Loss of $53.1M After Bitcoin Holdings Impairment Charge of $191.6M

To this point, the company has not adopted fair value accounting for its bitcoin stack, resulting in the first quarter write-down despite a major rally in prices.

Michael Saylor, executive chairman of MicroStrategy (Michael.com)

Markets

Press Briefing With ChinaAMC Executive Ahead of Tuesday Launch of Hong Kong Spot Bitcoin and Ether ETFs

Zhu Haokang is head of digital asset management and family wealth at one of the ETF providers, ChinaAMC, and expects initial subscriptions into the products will surpass those seen by the U.S. funds.

Hong Kong (Ruslan Bardash / Unsplash)

Markets

Bitcoin Chops Around $64K, With Japanese Yen's Tumble Maybe Signaling 'Currency Turmoil,' Analyst Says

The yen's volatile episode may spread to other fiat currencies as U.S. rate cuts remain elusive amid sticky inflation, which could drive investors to gold and bitcoin, Noelle Acheson said in an interview.

Bitcoin price on April 26 (CoinDesk)

Markets

NEAR and SHIB Led CoinDesk 20 Gainers Last Week: CoinDesk Indices Market Update

The majority of the assets posted gains despite a choppy market, but there were notable decliners as well.

CoinDesk 20 top performers (CoinDesk Indices)

Policy

Custodia Bank Appeals Court Loss in Fed Master Account Lawsuit

Custodia filed a notice of appeal on Friday after a judge last month ruled it did not have the right to a Fed master account.

Caitlin Long, Founder and CEO, Custodia Bank and Michael Casey, Chief Content Officer, CoinDesk (Shutterstock/CoinDesk)

Finance

Franklin Templeton Upgrades $380M Tokenized Treasury Fund to Enable Peer-to-Peer Transfers

The new feature helps to expand the utility of the Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund's BENJI token and make it more interconnected with the digital asset ecosystem.

a hundred dollar bill

Markets

Bitcoin Dips to $63K as Rate Cut Hopes Dim Following Disappointing U.S. Inflation Report

Increasing concerns about sticky inflation hit risk assets across all markets, cryptos included.

Bitcoin price on April 25 (CoinDesk)