U.S. inflation holds steady at 2.7% in December, matching November’s pace

Bitcoin jumped past $92,000 on Tuesday, driven by a 25% surge in trading volume to nearly $37 billion. This marks a sharp comeback after weeks of low activity.

As capital flows picked up, attention turned to altcoins, especially privacy tokens and memecoins, which saw fresh inflows.

By midday, Bitcoin hit $94,391, up 3.35% on the day, with a market cap of $1.89 trillion. Ethereum followed at $3,209, up 3.64%, while Solana hit $143.75, gaining 2.82%.

XRP added 3.81%, now trading around $2.13, and Dogecoin popped 5.48% to about 14.4 cents.

Across categories, meme coins, AI tokens, and Layer-1s led the charge, with strong liquidity on ETH, SOL, and BSC chains. Standouts included BNB, which spiked 4.34% to $944.19, and DeFi AI names also creeping back into favor.

Meanwhile, silver cracked $88/oz for the first time ever, now up another 24% in 2026, building on last year’s blistering +210% rally.

Core CPI rose 0.2% in December, both monthly and 2.6% annually, coming in 0.1 percentage point under forecasts, according to Tuesday’s release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The headline CPI ticked up 0.3% on the month, keeping the year-over-year rate at 2.7%, right in line with the Dow Jones consensus estimate.

While headline inflation is still above the Fed’s 2% target, the cooler core reading gives more weight to the idea that inflation’s finally losing steam. But that’s not the whole story.

Shelter costs, which make up over a third of the CPI, jumped 0.4% in December and were up 3.2% from a year ago. That single category was the biggest driver behind the monthly gain.

Other sticky areas didn’t exactly back down either. Food prices shot up 0.7%, and increases were also seen in recreation, airfares, medical care, and apparel.

That last one got hit by tariffs, unlike household furnishings, which actually saw a drop after President Donald Trump pulled back on tariff hikes for that import category.

The 1.2% spike in recreation costs was the biggest one-month jump since the index started tracking it in 1993, according to the BLS.