Bitcoin BTC +0.22% 's price pulled back below the $37,000 mark in the past 24 hours after Tuesday's release of minutes from the last Federal Open Market Committee meeting. 

"Participants noted that inflation had moderated over the past year but stressed that current inflation remained unacceptably high and well above the Committee’s longer-run goal of two percent," according to minutes of the November FOMC meeting, released on Tuesday.

As investors grapple with the nuances of the wording of the Fed's minutes, bitcoin is changing hands for $36,497 at 8:20 a.m. in New York, according to CoinGecko. The world's largest digital asset by market cap had dipped to a low of $35,800 in the hours after the minutes were released

BNB posted the most dramatic downturn for altcoins, falling by over 9% in the same period to $233. The downturn comes amid the changing of the guards at Binance, with Changpeng Zhao stepping down and Richard Teng taking up position as the new CEO.

Most risk assets sensitive to any nuance concerning Fed monetary policy have dipped — but, in a move contrary to the majority of top-ranking tokens, ether has held above the $2,000 mark, now trading at $2014.

Fed minutes reveal lingering inflation worries

Tuesday's FOMC minutes reveal that Federal Reserve policymakers had little appetite for cutting interest rates. Fed officials cited that inflation remains well above their target goal of 2%. They said monetary policy must stay “restrictive” until data shows inflation is on a convincing path to the Fed's 2% goal.

"In discussing the policy outlook, participants continued to judge that it was critical that the stance of monetary policy be kept sufficiently restrictive to return inflation to the Committee’s 2 percent objective over time,” the minutes said.

The minutes did not indicate that Fed officials discussed when they might start lowering rates. This supports Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s post-meeting news conference comments that "the Committee is not thinking about rate cuts right now at all."

Caution persists in the wider market

Major indices have stayed lower after releasing the minutes from the latest Federal Reserve meeting. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq closed down at the end of trade on Tuesday, ending a five-session winning streak for both indices.

Tuesday's minutes showed Fed officials agreeing to take a cautious approach to raising U.S. interest rates going forward. Headline inflation remains well above the central bank's 2% target.

However, last week's consumer price data showed inflation fell more than expected to 3.2% in October — the first decline in four months. The previous reading showed a 3.7% rise in the 12 months to September.