Bitcoin rose more than 17% in July, the best performance since October for the world’s largest cryptocurrency.

Ether, the second largest, also increased 57% last month, the strongest monthly uptick since January last year.

The crypto rally was in line with gains for riskier assets like stocks, as investors forecast the Fed would steer away from aggressive policy tightening.

Bitcoin’s 40-day correlation with the Nasdaq is now at 0.90, compared to 0.41 in January. A reading of 1 indicates they are in lockstep, Reuters reports. Since the end of November, BTC has been positively correlated with the Nasdaq.

July’s convergence is “good news” according to the deputy CEO of INX crypto trading platform, Itai Avneri.

"It means institutional investors are looking at Bitcoin like any other asset. When the market turns - and it will turn – these institutions will come back and invest in crypto."

July wasn’t just a good month for Bitcoin. The value of the global cryptocurrency market moved back over $1.15 trillion last month, an addition of more than $225 billion since the end of June, according to data from CoinGecko.

Furthermore, there was a significant rise in assets under management in digital asset investment products in July, up 16.9% to $25.9 billion. This is in contrast to June’s 36.8% fall, as per CryptoCompare findings.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at $23,336, consolidating around $24,000 after hitting that level last week, the Reuters report goes on to add.

SmartFi vice president Chris Terry believes Bitcoin will likely continue trading within a range of around $20,000, until economic uncertainty eases.

"We could be in this stalled market for weeks and weeks."

However, should the U.S. enter a lengthy period of recession, and the Fed cuts rates, Bitcoin may benefit, says Valour CEO, Russell Starr. "You're going to have to see another quarter of recession before you see a resumption back up to the lofty $60,000 levels," he commented.