After a dismal and volatile week leading up to Christmas weekend, bitcoin and other leading cryptocurrencies have rebounded strongly. Since Friday, bitcoin has vaulted nearly 25%, and the rest of the "big five" digital currencies have also experienced strong gains.

Today's cryptocurrency prices

Here's a look at the five largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization and how much each has changed over the past 24 hours, as well as over the long holiday weekend.

Cryptocurrency Name (Code) Price in U.S. Dollars Day's Change Change Since Friday, December 22, 2017. Bitcoin (BTC) $15,875 16.6% 23.9% Ethereum (ETH) $742.40 4.8% 19.4% Bitcoin Cash (BCH) $2,810.30 3.2% 28.3% Ripple (XRP) $0.99 1.3% 7.6% Litecoin (LTC) $279.74 2.3% 11.1%

Bitcoin has recovered by more than 50% from its $10,400 low hit during extremely volatile Friday trading.

Why are there so many cryptocurrencies?

A common question people who aren't too familiar with cryptocurrencies is "why are there so many?" In other words, why isn't bitcoin enough? If bitcoin is so popular and has so many advantages, why do we need Ethereum, Ripple, and others? And this question certainly makes sense -- in fact, there are 1,366 different cryptocurrencies currently tracked by investing.com.

While many of these are small, there's a good reason why several have emerged as major players in the cryptocurrency market alongside bitcoin. In fact, Ethereum has a massive $74.7 billion market cap, and bitcoin cash, ripple, and litecoin, which make up the rest of the top five, combine for more than $100 billion in market value.

The short answer is that while bitcoin does have several key advantages over traditional means of payment processing, it does have some big flaws and limitations, while the major alternative digital currencies solve (or improve on) some of these problems. Here's a rundown of the rest of the "big five":