What a crazy ride 2017 was for anyone holding some bitcoin. Around November, I finally located the fraction of one that I had forgotten about sometime in mid-2014 and watched as the cryptocurrency's value nearly hit $20,000 in December before dropping by nearly half to its current (still remarkable) price.

Bitcoin and many other so called "alt-coins" like Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, and hundreds of other digital currencies (ranging from potentially revolutionary to scammy cash grabs) underwent a painful price correction in January following dizzying exponential growth in 2017.

Many of these cryptocurrencies are still worth several times what they were a year ago, despite being down roughly 40 to 70 percent from their highest prices in many cases.

But the second-largest cryptocurrency, measured by total market cap, has been defying the trend of the last month and is once again approaching a record high price while most others languish and stumble side to side.

Ethereum's ether token was trading for over $1,200 on the Coinbase exchange Sunday, coming within striking distance of the all-time high of $1,338 set last month. Meanwhile, bitcoin's price has tumbled all the way back to the $11,000 range. When bitcoin first touched that price during its meteoric run-up in November and December, Ethereum was trading for just around $500.

In other words, traders seem to think Ethereum is the major cryptocurrency most deserving of insane growth in price over the past several months.

There's certainly a case to be made for Ethereum and ether's success. Unlike bitcoin, which is designed to serve solely as a currency, Ethereum's blockchain is more powerful, acting as a platform upon which all sorts of applications can be run. In fact, a number of other cryptocurrencies are what are known as ERC20 tokens that actually operate within the Ethereum ecosystem.