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


Tech

Blackbird, Blockchain Restaurant Loyalty App, Goes Live With Flynet Mainnet

Blackbird’s layer-3 mainnet, Flynet, is built on Coinbase’s Base chain. The team claims that building a layer-3 for its program benefits the restaurant industry because it eliminates middlemen and reduces transaction costs.

CoinDesk

Finance

Illicit Crypto Volume in 2024 Hit a Record $40B in 2024: Chainalysis

Criminals are no longer using BTC, but instead choosing stablecoins, the report revealed.

(Pixabay)

Markets

Crypto Holds as TradFi Sinks on Latest Trump Tariff Threat

Already having posted sharp losses over the past days, the price of bitcoin held about steady following the news.

Donald Trump (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Policy

Stablecoins Take Center Stage at Senate's First Digital Assets Subcommittee Hearing

Legislators convened a panel to discuss what stablecoin and market structure bills need to address.

CoinDesk

Markets

Nvidia Tops Q4 Estimates, Q1 Revenue Outlook of $43B Modestly Ahead of Consensus

Bitcoin remains sharply lower on Wednesday, with AI-Related Tokens Continuing to Outperform

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (Nvidia)

Markets

Strategy Is Down 50% From Its Highs. What Does It Mean for Its $43B Bitcoin Holdings?

Bitcoin's stumble begs the question asked during the last bear market: Is there a point at which Michael Saylor would be forced to liquidate part of the company's near-500,000 BTC stack?

MicroStrategy executive chairman Michael Saylor (CoinDesk archives)

Markets

Gold-Back Cryptos Outperform as Precious Metal ETF Inflows Near Three-Year High

The price of gold is up nearly 11% so far in 2025 and 43% over the past 12 months.

Gold bar (Scottsdale mint/Unsplash)

Markets

Bitcoin Miner GDA Expands West Texas Facilities With 50 MW Deployment

Genesis Digital Assets is a private bitcoin miner that claims to have one of the largest hashrate capacities in the world.

Bitcoin mining rigs (Image credit: Eliza Gkritsi/CoinDesk)

Finance

Michael Novogratz's Galaxy Hires Zac Prince, Former CEO and Co-Founder of BlockFi

Prince will work closely with the firm's president, Chris Ferraro, to expand Galaxy's crypto offering.

Mike Novogratz, Founder and CEO, Galaxy Digital (Suzanne Cordiero/Shutterstock/CoinDesk)