Crypto markets have been struggling to gain traction amid ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty

Bitcoin dropped early Thursday but recouped around $24,000 as investors continued to weigh the minutes from the U.S. Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting earlier during the month as well as the latest economic data.

The biggest crypto currency in terms of market capitalization was trading at 23,921, a 0.5 per cent rise from Wednesday, same time but lower from its weekly peak of more than $25,000, as per CoinDesk data. Crypto markets have been grappling to gain traction amid ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty.

The market has not been able to kind of get over that hump, Joel Kruger, market strategist at LMAX Group, told CoinDesk in an interview.

Until we do that, I think there continues to be the risk that it is possible that we are still in this big strengthening of that slide that we saw, he said.

Ether (ETH), the second-biggest crypto currency, was 2.1 per cent higher to recently trade at $1,650. The CoinDesk Market Index, which measures overall crypto market performance, was 1.1 per cent higher for the day.

Equities markets rose slightly, with the S&P 500 index recently up 0.5 per cent following a four-day sell-off.

Wednesday’s Federal Open Market Committee minutes release put forward monetary doves as well as hawks some hope, although the high possibility of a 25 basis point rate hike was unaffected.

The CME FedWatch Tool reveals that less than three in four traders currently anticipate a 25 basis-point hike, while more than one in four anticipate a 50 basis-point hike at the Federal Open Market Committee’s upcoming meeting in March.

In an email to CoinDesk, Bob Ras, co-founder of exchange and digital asset ecosystem Sologenic, state that while the central bank’s continued monetary tightening could lower the crypto market’s performance, Asian central banks, including Japan and China, have been injecting liquidity into their markets, indicating the latest rally ‘still has legs.’