Investing.com - Ethereum, the world's third-largest cryptocurrency by market value, hit a fresh record high on Monday, as its strong rally continued.
Ethereum was trading at $1,149.90 by 05:26 AM ET (10:26 GMT) on the Bitfinex exchange, after rising to peak of $1,225 earlier in the day.
It is currently the third-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, after being overtaken by Ripple's XRP token last week. Its market cap rose above $100 billion for the first time last Thursday.
Ethereum’s fresh record high comes amid investors looking at alternative digital currencies beyond bitcoin.
Bitcoin was trading at $15,304.00 on the Bitfinex exchange.
Bitcoin rose as high as $19,891 on 17 December on Bitfinex and to more than $20,000 on other exchanges.
However, from its all-time high reached in mid-December, the price dropped by almost half over the rest of the month before rebounding.
Despite its rocky end to 2017 bitcoin is still the largest cryptocurrency by market cap, with a market value of about $260 billion.
Meanwhile, Ripple's XRP token was down around 6% to $2.48 on the Poloinex exchange.
On January 4 Ripple hit a record high of $3.28 and currently has a market cap of around $98 billion.
Ripple rose in value by more than 32,000% over the course of 2017. It began the year trading at around $0.006 and ended at $1.98.
Ripple’s gains in 2017 outstripped the gains of Ethereum and bitcoin, which rose by roughly 9,000% and 1,400%, respectively.