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

Kraken rolls out crypto-style, 24/7 perpetuals trading for tokenized U.S. stocks

The crypto exchange is bringing U.S. stocks closer to the crypto world, letting users trade derivatives of tokenized stocks around-the-clock and with 20x leverage.

Kraken

Markets

Adam Back's BSTR moving forward with public listing plans, hopes for April approval

Back remains optimistic despite the brutal price action in bitcoin and BTC treasury companies.

Adam Back, CEO Blockstream (CoinDesk/Personae Digital)

Markets

'If you’re not accumulating bitcoin at this stage, then when,' asks prominent analyst

Time, not price, is probably going to be more frustrating for bulls from here, wrote James Check, but bitcoin has been mostly de-risked at this point.

Tug of war (Shutterstock, modified by CoinDesk)

Finance

NEAR Launches Near.com super app, touting AI capabilities and confidential transactions

The company is betting that the next big wave in crypto will come from its convergence with AI.

NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin (Margaux Nijkerk/ CoinDesk)

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Finance

Kraken’s co-CEO could trust AI with 100% of his crypto — Dragonfly’s Haseeb Qureshi isn’t convinced

At NEARCON 2026, Dragonfly’s Haseeb Qureshi and Kraken co-CEO Arjun Sethi delivered a sharp debate over how soon those agents can be trusted with real money.

Dragonfly Managing Partner Haseeb Qureshi and Kraken co-CEO Arjun Sethi @ NEARCON 2026 (Margaux Nijkerk/ CoinDesk)

Markets

Crypto suffers deeper declines as AI fears send IBM plunging 11%

Artificial intelligence company Anthropic announced that its Claude platform can streamline COBOL code, a key profit center for IBM.

Ether has fallen below a key bull market trendline.  (Eva Blue/Unsplash)

Finance

Solana Company starts building high-speed infrastructure to prepare SOL for next 'super cycle'

The initiative targets institutional demand across Asia-Pacific, offering DeFi tools, liquid staking, and execution services designed for traditional finance firms entering the crypto space.

Solana portfolio shown on a laptop (Amjith S/Unsplash)

Markets

Bitcoin rebound fades as software and private equity rout drags stocks and crypto lower

Crypto has been nearly perfectly correlated with a key software sector ETF, and that gauge has tumbled another 5% Monday to a new 52-week low.

Bitcoin (BTC) price on Feb. 23 (CoinDesk)

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Markets

Anthony Pompliano led Procap Financial dips toe into buybacks

The company, which has raised more than $750 million from investors, repurchased about $350,000 worth of its stock.

Anthony Pompliano. (CoinDesk)

Finance

BitMine Immersion added $98 million of ether last week as losses balloon to more than $8 billion

Tom Lee's Ethereum-focused firm continues buying into the crypto market weakness, now 4.42 million ETH tokens, or about 3.66 percent of the total supply.

Thomas Lee, chairman of BitMine and CIO of Fundstrat, on the main stage during Consensus Hong Kong 2026 (David Paul Morris/Consensus, modified by CoinDesk)