Bitcoin Briefly Rises above $24,000, Extending its New Year’s Rally Amid a Broader Gain in Tech Stocks

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The Celsius and Voyager bankruptcy filings have raised questions about what happens to investors’ crypto when a platform goes down.

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Bitcoin briefly touched the $24,000 level on Thursday, hitting a key technical level and building on its January rally.

The upward move came a day after the Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point. But Fed Chairman Jerome Powell noted that a process of disinflation has begun, appeasing investors betting on lower inflation and forcing them to take more risk.

Bitcoin was last trading around 1% higher at $23,819.26, according to Coin Metrics. The cryptocurrency rose to $24,069.00 earlier in the afternoon, after hitting $24,249.70 on Wednesday evening, its highest level since August 17.

“The market viewed the last FOMC as dovish, but bitcoin’s rally remains precarious,” said Yuya Hasegawa, crypto market analyst at Japanese bitcoin exchange Bitbank. “The price rose on Wednesday, but did not close above $24,000 and its momentum appears to be waning.”

Hasegawa echoed the Fed’s warning that although inflation appears to be easing, it “remains elevated” and the central bank will need “much more evidence to confidently say that inflation is approaching its 2% target.

The jump also coincided with a broader rally in equities led by the Nasdaq as well as a drop in yields for the US Treasury and the US Dollar Currency Index (DXY), which tend to move inversely to crypto.

Bitcoin is up over 40% year-to-date, rapidly paring losses from its disastrous 2022. Many investors and analysts are wary, however, that despite the current uptrend, the crypto is not still primed for a rocket rally, and prices could pull back at least once more before it does.

January was bitcoin’s best month since October 2021 and its best January since 2013.

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