The price of Ethereum, the technology used by global banks in their blockchain experiments, went ballistic on Thursday afternoon.

Ether, the currency that represents Ethereum in cryptocurrency markets, has leapt 40 per cent in the last 24-hours, a 100 per cent jump in the last week. It is currently sitting at 0.0126 a Bitcoin ($US4.78). Which is sitting at around $6.70.

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia, HSBC, UBS and Credit Suisse are part of an 11-member group called R3 and are exploring how blockchain technology can allow them to securely transfer money and other assets over the internet, securely and very quickly.

Major banks are experimenting with Ethereum's blockchain and markets are reacting.

In January, R3 announced its first distributed ledger experiment using Ethereum and Microsoft Azure's blockchain.

Ethereum is a cryptocurrency, similar to Bitcoin, but also enables smart contract distribution.