After a period of tremendous growth, the banking-oriented cryptocurrency Ripple has overtaken Ethereum and is currently the second largest coin in terms of market cap behind Bitcoin.

Ripple's price rose 42.7 percent in the last 24 hours alone according to CoinMarketCap, with its market cap surging to $73.6 billon.

This is the first time a cryptocurrency has overtaken Ethereum since May 2017, when Ripple quickly surged in price before cooling off at the end of the month.

There's no clear reason behind Ripple's most recent price surge. The cryptocurrency's technology, which is fundamentally different from Bitcoin and is designed for fast and secure global financial transactions, was recently tested by Japanese and South Korean banks.

Other cryptocurrencies have had a mixed day; Bitcoin hasn't moved nearly at all in the last 24 hours and is currently trading at $14,402; Ethereum rose 2.8 percent to $733.4; Bitcoin Cash fell 7.9 percent, to $2,393, and Litecoin dropped 4 percent and is currently trading at $241.

Ripple's price growth in 2017 has been absolutely insane, even by cryptocurrency standards. You could've bought one Ripple for $0.0065 on January 1, whereas the current price is $1.89, a 29,000 percent increase.

Disclosure: The author of this text owns, or has recently owned, a number of cryptocurrencies, including BTC and ETH.

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