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


Finance

Matador Technologies to Acquire Stake in Indian Firm HODL Systems

The Canadian firm plans to invest $3.2M for up to 24.95% ownership and license its digital gold tech to the Indian market.

Matador. (Credit: Paul Kenny McGrath/Unsplash)

Finance

Rain Expands Stablecoin Visa Cards to Solana, Tron and Stellar as Digital Payment Gains Momentum

The crypto card provider said demand is growing to make stablecoins spendable at merchants that accept Visa payments.

A Visa card being held to next to a payment terminal. (CardMapr.nl/Unsplash)

Tech

Bitget Wallet Partners With Coinpal to Let Users Spend Crypto at 6,000+ Online Merchants

The new integration adds payment support for games, fashion and electronics to Bitget's ecosystem.

Merchant acceptance (Credit: Sumup / Unsplash)

Markets

U.S. Spot Crypto ETFs Saw Strong Inflows on Wednesday, JPMorgan Says

Both ether and bitcoin products saw net inflows despite a drop in underlying asset prices, the report said.

JPMorgan building (Shutterstock)

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Markets

Peter Schiff Calls Bitcoin a 'Giant Cult,' Doubles Down on Gold

Appearing at the Bitcoin 2025 conference, the famed gold bug and no-coiner called bitcoin is a “memecoin” and not real wealth, drawing laughs — and ire.

Peter Schiff

Markets

Ether Outperforms DeFi Market in May, Bouncing From Woeful Start to the Year

ETH is beginning to wrangle back control with rival layer-1 blockchains like Solana.

ETH price (CoinDesk data)

Finance

Bitcoin Treasury Firm Twenty One Capital Brings Total Fundraise to $685M

The fresh fundraising comes ahead the firm's merger with Nasdaq-listed Cantor Equity Partners to become a publicly-traded bitcoin treasury company.

Strike CEO Jack Mallers speaks at the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami. (Danny Nelson/CoinDesk)

Tech

Square Flies the Flag for the Lightning Network With 9.7% Yield on Bitcoin Holdings

Block's Miles Suter said that the firm is earning "real BTC returns from our corporate holdings...by efficiently routing real payments across Lightning"

16:9 Lightning (Nordseher/Pixabay)

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Markets

CANTO Rises From the Ashes, Spiking 250% Before Crashing Back Down

The project has not posted on X since September despite claiming it would release a new roadmap.

CoinDesk

Markets

Telegram Raises $1.7B Via Convertible Bonds: Bloomberg

The messaging app, with over 1 billion users, plans to use $955 million to buy back existing bonds and the remaining $745 million for growth.

Telegram app on a smartphone (Christian Wiediger/Unsplash)