This month's cryptocurrency boom isn't limited to bitcoin. Over the last 24 hours, two of bitcoin's biggest rivals—Litecoin and Ethereum's ether—have enjoyed huge price gains.
Trading volume has been so intense that one of the leading cryptocurrency exchange services, Coinbase, has suffered downtime.
Bitcoin's price has also been doing well over the last 24 hours—but those gains were largely regaining ground lost over the weekend. Bitcoin recently passed $17,000, roughly the same value the currency reached last Thursday.
Litecoin has soared an astonishing 150 percent in four days, from $130 to $325. Litecoin is one of the Internet's first "altcoins." It has features similar to bitcoin but is able to confirm transactions more quickly.
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