Cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin hit a 6-week high today

Bitcoin broke above $24,000 today, hitting a 6-week high, as it continues to follow the markets uptrend, but it did not sustain.

The largest digital currency reached $24,412 at 9:30 am. Greek time on Friday, according to CoinDesk data, the highest level in more than six weeks. Bitcoin is currently trading at $23,629.

Bitcoin’s rally began after the US Federal Reserve raised interest rates on Wednesday, signaling that the pace of rate hikes could slow. This also caused a rally in US stocks.

Cryptocurrency movements have broadly matched those of US stocks of late, watching in particular the tech-heavy Nasdaq, which has seen a sharp jump over the past two days.

“Overall, I think the markets have reacted positively to the Fed’s comments and arguably priced in most rate hikes,” Vijay Ayyar, vice president of corporate development and international operations at cryptocurrency exchange Luno, told CNBC.

“There appears to be a lot of liquidity in the margin, after the last few months of consolidation/downward pressure, which is now easing,” he added.

Still, bitcoin is down about 48% this year and remains more than 60% away from its all-time high of $68,990.90 hit in November.

The cryptocurrency market has been hit hard by a series of events, including the collapse of the algorithmic stablecoin, terraUSD, which set off a chain of events that led to the bankruptcy of lending platform Celsius and hedge fund Three Arrows Capital.

Traders are trying to figure out what the bottom will be for bitcoin and whether the deleveraging and problems in the industry are over. Market players told CNBC that they want to see an improvement in the macroeconomic picture and the completion of deleveraging before a bottom is found for bitcoin.

Bitcoin has traded in a range from around $18,000 to just over $24,000 since mid-June.