Alternative digital currency ripple made some significant gains Friday, despite the wider market for cryptocurrencies seeing a sharp pullback.

Also known as XRP, it soared to $1.24 at 1:14 a.m. ET, and was up 25 percent over a period of 24 hours, according to data from industry website Coinmarketcap. The digital currency reached the key psychological $1 mark for the first time Thursday, and hit an all-time high of $1.38 that same day.

It briefly retook its place as the third-largest cryptocurrency, with a market value of $47 billion, a milestone it reached earlier this month. Ripple pared its gains later Friday morning. Its market capitalization fell bellow that of bitcoin cash, as XRP's price slid to 95 cents by 3:25 a.m. ET.

Interest in alternative cryptocurrencies — known as altcoins — tends to increase when there is too much activity congesting the blockchain network underpinning bitcoin, according to experts. But major altcoins including ethereum, bitcoin cash and litecoin were also seen trading lower Friday.

Bitcoin cash was surrounded in controversy earlier this week after cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase unveiled support on its service for buying and selling the bitcoin rival. Some accused the venue of insider trading with bitcoin cash trading higher hours before the service launched its new feature. Coinbase said it is currently investigating these claims, and would "not hesitate" to fire employees if it finds they violated its trading policy.

Meanwhile, litecoin's price fell after its creator Charlie Lee said he had sold and donated all of his holdings in the cryptocurrency. Lee said his sold stake was a "small percentage" of daily volume on the cryptocurrency exchange GDAX and that it "did not crash the market."