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

Arbitrum's ARB Surges After Appearing Among Supported Chains for PayPal's $850M PYUSD Stablecoin

PayPal's cryptocurrency terms listed the network as a supported chain for its Paxos-issued stablecoin, despite any deal not being officially announced.

PayPal logo on iphone screen (Marques Thomas/Unsplash)

Markets

BNB Climbs as Binance Dominates Q2 Volumes Alongside Broader Crypto Rally

Binance maintained its top spot among crypto exchanges, handling over 35% of global trading volume in the second quarter.

BNB price chart (CoinDesk Data)

Tech

Eclipse Launches $ES Airdrop, Distributing 15% of Token Supply

The team behind the network shared that the initial distribution will occur over the next 30 days.

eclipse

Markets

Strategy’s Convertible Bond Prices Surge as Stock Advances Back Toward Record High

Five of the six convertible issuances from the serial bitcoin acquirer are trading deep in the money, creating billions in unrealized value.

Strategy Executive Chairman Michael Saylor standing. (Nikhilesh De/CoinDesk))

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Finance

Early Bitcoiner Adam Back Nears $3.5B BTC Deal With Brandon Lutnick-Led Cantor SPAC: FT

According to the report, the Cantor Equity Partners 1 shell company would acquire 30,000 bitcoin from Back and his Blocksteam Capital in exchange for shares in the Cantor vehicle.

Blockstream CEO Adam Back at Consensus Hong Kong in February (CoinDesk/Personae Digital)

Policy

'Crypto Week' Back on Track? Trump Says Defecting Lawmakers Ready to Vote for Bills

The House was supposed to vote at 5pm ET Monday after an earlier hiccup.

There was bipartisan opposition to advancing the crypto bills on a procedural motion. (C-SPAN)

Finance

Jamie Dimon Says JPMorgan to Get More Involved With Stablecoins

Speaking on his bank's second quarter earnings call, the famous crypto skeptic acknowledged that stablecoins are "real."

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Policy

UK Commits to Enabling DLT, Tokenization Work in its Wholesale Strategy

Regulators will also explore how stablecoins can be utilized in the new Digital Securities Sandbox.

A view over the City of London taken over the Thames near Tower Bridge. (Cj / Unsplash+)

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Markets

ICP Slides 3% But Caffeine Launch Sparks Rebound

DFINITY has officially launched Caffeine, an AI-powered Web3 platform built on ICP, at the "Hello, Self-Writing Internet" event in San Francisco

ICP-USD July 15 2025 (CoinDesk)

Markets

BNB Slips Nearly 2% as Traders Cash Out After Run Higher

BNB is celebrating its eighth anniversary and has recently undergone a $1 billion token burn.

CoinDesk