Bitcoin's astonishing run in 2017 attracted headlines and hype, as the digital currency's price soared and turned early investors into crypto-millionaires.

But another cryptocurrency's rise shook investors at the year's end as a currency known as Ripple capped an annual rise of more than 36,000 per cent, doubling in price in the last week of December.

Ripple's growth came after reports its payments system was being tested with a host of global banks, with Japanese and Korean credit card companies confirming they would pilot the technology.

Each unit of Ripple is now worth around $2.20 on online exchanges. While this is markedly less than Bitcoin's mammoth valuation of more than $13,800 per coin, Ripple has increased from $0.006 twelve months ago, and the total value of its supply makes it the second most valuable cryptocurrency.

So why is Ripple now worth so much more than it was just months ago, and is its rise any different from the the growth of Bitcoin?

Ripple explained

While Bitcoin is a digital currency, Ripple is technically the payments network behind the cryptocurrency officially known as XRP, although it is often referred to simply as Ripple.

Like Bitcoin, Ripple runs on a blockchain, a secure online record of all transactions considered the future of online payments technology used today.