Stephen Alpher
Stephen Alpher is CoinDesk's co-regional news chief, Americas. He holds BTC and ETH above CoinDesk’s disclosure threshold of $1,000.
Bitcoin () has risen nearly 5% in value to above $20,000 for the first time in about three weeks, and ether () is ahead just shy of 11% to its highest price since the Merge, leading a broad rally in cryptocurrencies and related stocks.
Among names on the move are COINBASE (COIN) and MicroStrategy (MSTR), each up 10%. Many of the crypto miners are doing even better, with Hut 8 (HUT), Bitfarms (BITF), Marathon Digital (MARA) and Riot Blockchain (RIOT) higher by 11%-18%.
On Monday, Cathie Wood's ARK Fintech Innovation Fund (ARKF) added 10,880 shares of Coinbase to its holdings, bringing its stake in the stock up to $60.5 million, or roughly 8% of the fund’s weight. It was ARK's first buy of COIN since the asset manager unloaded shares in July, citing an SEC probe into the company.
Crypto is rallying alongside traditional equity markets, with the Nasdaq higher by 1.6% and S&P 500 by 1.1%. At play is the idea that the U.S. Federal Reserve is nearing the end of its rate hike cycle. Both bond yields and the dollar are sharply lower in Tuesday trading.
UPDATE (Oct. 25, 2022 18:24 UTC): Updates to add Cathie Wood's purchase of Coinbase shares.
