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

Ether ETFs See $107M Inflows on Day One as Trading Volume Tops $1B

Daily cumulative net inflow hit $106.78 million, with most ETFs in the green on the first day of trading.

(TheDigitalArtist/Pixabay)

Finance

BlackRock's $500M Tokenized Fund Pitches for Ethena's RWA Investment Plan; ENA Rallies 22%

Ethena's proposal to allocate funds to tokenized real-world assets for yield follows similar actions by crypto lender MakerDAO and Ethereum layer-2 Arbitrum's development organization.

(Jim Henderson, modified by CoinDesk)

Markets

Bitcoin Slips to Near $65K as Mt. Gox Creditors Receive Assets on Kraken

Bitcoin cash led with a 7% decline, while Solana's SOL, Ripple's XRP and Cardano's ADA also dropped 4%-5% as the news of the Mt. Gox distribution weighed on sentiment.

Bitcoin price on July 23 (CoinDesk)

Markets

Spot Ether ETFs See $600M in Volume In First Half Day of Trading

Funds from Grayscale, BlackRock and Fidelity have seen the most volume, though analysts believe that Grayscale’s high amount comes from heavy outflows.

The eight recently launched spot ETH ETFs posted nearly $600M of volume in the first half of their first day of availability. (Charlie Harris/Unsplash)

Markets

CoinDesk 20 Performance Update: Index Slips 2.2% as Spot Ether ETFs Begin Trading

Declines of 5.6% in ICP and 5.2% in AVAX dragged the index down in overnight trading.

9am CoinDesk 20 Update for 2024-07-23 - laggards

Markets

Ether Rises Above $3.5K Ahead of ETH ETF Trading, but Inflow Concerns Remain

Ethereum has more utility than Bitcoin with features like liquid staking, but the question among the ETH ETFs performing as well as BTC ETFs remains ahead of trading.

Ether is now trading on U.S. stock exchanges via newly approved ETFs. (Aditya Vyas/Unsplash)

Markets

Taking Profits on Bitcoin Ahead of Trump Conference Appearance Could Be 'Expensive Exercise': Analyst

Markus Thielen, founder of 10x Research, fully expects Trump to win the November election, triggering an early exit for SEC Chair Gary Gensler.

MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN - JULY 15: (L-R) Tucker Carlson, U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), Republican presidential candidate, former U.S. President Donald Trump,  Republican Vice Presidential candidate, U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) appear on the first day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum on July 15, 2024 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Delegates, politicians, and the Republican faithful are in Milwaukee for the annual convention, concluding with former President Donald Trump accepting his party's presidential nomination. The RNC takes place from July 15-18. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Markets

CoinDesk 20 Performance Update: AVAX and SOL Surge Lead Weekend Advance

AVAX led the CoinDesk 20 with a 14.5% increase in over the weekend trading, while SOL climbed 6.0%

CoinDesk 20 leaders (CoinDesk Indices)

Markets

CoinDesk 20 Performance Update: SOL Jumps 4.1% Amid Broad Market Uptick

The CoinDesk 20 Index saw a 1% increase, driven by strong performances from SOL and APT.

CoinDesk 20 leaders (CoinDesk Indices)

Finance

Italy's Top Banks Participate in 25M Euro Digital Bond Issuance on Polygon in ECB Trial

Global lenders and asset managers are increasingly exploring blockchain tech to issue and transfer traditional financial instruments, also known as tokenization of real-world assets.

Intesa Sanpaolo headquarters in Turin (Riccardo Tuninato/Unsplash)