Bitcoin has more than doubled in price this year alone, but it has been outperformed by its closest rival Ether, which is up over 2,300 percent.On January 1, bitcoin was trading at the day's high of $1,003.25.On Wednesday, it broke through the $2,300 barrier for the first time to hit a fresh record high of $2,377.32, according to CoinDesk, marking a year-to-date rise of 137 percent.To find out what's driving bitcoin's rally, read more here.Meanwhile, bullishness around bitcoin has stoked appetite for other cryptocurrencies.One in particular known as ether is getting traction.This represents a 2,367 percent rise year-to-date.Ether runs on an underlying technology called Ethereum, which is a different blockchain to the one that underpins bitcoin.While ether does have digital "coins" like bitcoin, companies are more focused on how the Ethereum blockchain could be used in real-world applications.Ethereum has been designed to support so-called smart contract applications.A smart contract is a computer program that can automatically execute the terms of a contract when certain conditions are met, potentially taking a lot of the human involvement out of completing a deal.

Barclays for example, have used a form of this technology to trade derivatives.How is it different to bitcoin?Firstly, Ethereum is a lot younger having only been started in 2014, whereas bitcoin began in 2009.Ethereum is also focused on smart contracts, while bitcoin is very much about payment technology.Why has ether rallied so much?While bitcoin has been getting support from certain governments and investors, the Ethereum blockchain has been backed by corporates wishing to use the technology for smart contract applications.A group called the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) was recently founded to connect large companies to technology vendors in order to work on projects using the blockchain.Companies involved in the launch include JPMorgan, Microsoft and Intel.On Tuesday, the EEA announced another 86 firms joined the alliance, which is adding growing legitimacy to the cryptocurrency.At the same time, the rally in bitcoin has seen investors turn to alternative digital currencies as well as attracting a broader investment base.

A year ago, over 83 percent of ether buying happened with bitcoin, according to data from CryptoCompare, showing that it was mainly crytocurrency enthusiasts interested in it.bitcoin beurzenAs of Wednesday, bitcoin accounted for just over 32 percent of trade while fiat currencies such as the U.S.bitcoin gh/s pricedollar and Korean won have risen sharply.litecoin give"Yes the direct fiat flow options are a fleshing out of the ethereum ecosystem and show its broad appeal," Charles Hayter, CEO of CryptoCompare, told CNBC by email.bitcoin betting redditWill the rally last?who made litecoinNot all in the market are convinced that the ether rally will last.litecoin mining forum

Bitcoin trader Jason Hamilton is worried that products like Ethereum could be cloned."People are buying a specific blockchain, but the big interests are in the technology.They'll probably make their own clones and the ether tokens everyone is buying won't be used for much except trading.Who knows, though," Hamilton told CNBC via a direct message on Twitter."I don't usually trade ether.I'm afraid of that bubble bursting, but it could go on bubbling up for a long time still."BitcoinNew York Stock Exchange Gives Bitcoin Some Mainstream LoveRobert Hackett/FortuneThe New York Stock Exchange premiered a bitcoin index on Tuesday, giving an important endorsement to the digital currency that could help give it more mainstream credibility.NYSE President Thomas Farley couched the announcement in terms of meeting customer demand."Bitcoinvalues are quickly becoming a data point that our customers want to follow as they consider transacting, trading or investing with this emerging asset class," he said in a statement from the NYSE's parent company, Intercontinental Exchange.

"We are pleased to bring transparency to this market."Thenew index tracks the price of one bitcoin in U.S.dollars by looking at transactions processed through various bitcoin exchanges.The NYSE was quick to point out that it will only track only bitcoin exchanges that "have been evaluated and meet NYSE’s quality standards."LastGox, the leading bitcoin exchange, imploded and lost hundreds of millions of dollars worth of its customers' holdings.Since then, the price of the digital money has dropped precipitously—to around $230 today.At its height in 2013, bitcoin traded at more than $1,200 per unit.Initially, the NYSE bitcoin index is getting its data from Coinbase, a bitcoin wallet startup that NYSE invested in at the beginning of the year.Other financial stalwarts are getting in on the bitcoin act, too.The Nasdaq stock exchange, Goldman Sachs, and former U.S.Treasury Secretary Larry Summers have become involving in some way with the cryptocurrency through investments in bitcoin-related startups, taking board seats in those companies and using some of its underlying technology.Farley, for his part, is not ruffled by the possibility that bitcoin could fail to meet the promises of techno-utopians.

"We’re willing to make some investments and even take on some risk earlier in the lifecycle of a new technology than some of our competitors," he told Mashable."The benefit is when we get it right, we get it real right.When we get it wrong, the idea is to get to that answer as quickly as possible and move on."BusinessInsider reported that this is just the beginning for NYSE's bitcoin program."This is just the first of many bitcoin-based indexes that the NYSE plans to launch," the site said, citing an exchange spokesperson."Details about further indexes have yet to be released."From The News Desk Even for those investors interested in finding exposure to bitcoin, you could forgive them for feeling skeptical about even the most high profile of exchanges within the category.Bitcoin exchanges have proven a high profile target for hackers and internal fraud, with many of the most widely traded platforms falling victim to such attacks.But thanks to a new investment vehicle hitting a major US stock exchange, these bitcoin-specific exchanges are no longer an investor’s only option.

Bitcoin Investment Trust (BIT), which launched in 2013 as a private investment fund for accredited investors, is poised to become the world's first publicly traded bitcoin fund.FINRA, the financial industry regulatory body, has approved the company’s listing on the OTCQX, the most heavily regulated of over-the-counter exchanges (formerly known as the “Bulletin Boards”) and assigned the stock a ticker symbol of “GBTC.” The Merriman Capital will be BIT’s exclusive market maker for the fund’s first 30 days of trading.BIT is currently trading under a temporary symbol, “BTCV, on the OTC Markets (aka, “Pink Sheet’), but founder Barry Silbert says he expects the official listing to begin shortly.Each BIT share is worth approximately one tenth of a bitcoin and unlike when BIT was raising capital privately, there will be no minimum purchase for its publicly traded shares.BIT is an open-ended trust, meaning that it sells new shares – still privately, pending SEC approval – as it purchases new bitcoin.

Silbert, who also co-founded Second Market, is not counting his chickens, however, telling Coindesk, “No assurances can be given as to when or if such trading will commence, or that an active public secondary market for BIT shares will develop or be maintained."Silbert stepped down from his duties as CEO of Second Market to run a crypto-currency-focused spinout called Digital Currency Group.BIT isn’t the only bitcoin fund aiming to see its shares traded on one of Wall Street’s main exchanges.The Winklevoss brothers, of Facebook lawsuit fame, are in the throes of a Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) review of their aptly named Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust (WBT), which has been given the preliminary symbol “COIN.” The brothers are also seeking to launch a regulated bitcoin exchange, dubbed Gemeni in reference to the fact that they’re twins, as well as the NASA moon landing.BIT won the listing race, in part because it has investors who have held positions in the fund for more then 12 months, a fact that allows them to sell shares publicly with far less FINRA scrutiny.

Once the listing goes live, the buyers of those shares can, for the first time ever, come from any income and net worth bracket.But, given that it’s taken this shortcut, BIT cannot be officially classified as an ETF – a designation that it and WBT will both only obtain following full SEC approval.Further, the OTC Markets exchanges are still viewed as a step down in terms of legitimacy from Nasdaq and the NYSE (aka, “the Big Board”).One downside of this approach is that Silbert and Digital Currency Group can’t control how many long-term BIT investors choose to sell their shares, and thus the size of the secondary float and the liquidity in the security.One would presume, however, that before reaching this stage the company concluded that there would be adequate interest.As an early investor itself, Digital Currency Group is also able to sell a limited number of its own shares in BIT.Consider that when many BIT holders first invested in late 2013, bitcoin was priced around $100 – then again, it has been as high as $1,140 in the year-and-a-half since.

The Coinbase Bitcoin Price Index currently sits at $260 – the highest level it has seen in several weeks.Holders of BIT shares won’t actually hold bitcoin in their names, but rather will hold shares of a fund (as opposed to an operating company, like Apple) that itself holds bitcoin – similar to the way gold ETFs work today.This offers a more accessible path toward bitcoin exposure for the average retail investor, who can now buy GBTC with their existing brokerage account (Fidelity, Schwab, etc.), rather than having to create and fund a separate account with a bitcoin exchange.Retail investors now even have the option of making bitcoin investments with their tax-advantaged retirement accounts like IRAs and 401Ks (pending individual plan terms and conditions).There are $6 trillion sitting in American retirement accounts, alone, making this a potentially enormous pool of new capital now available to the bitcoin markets.The hope within the bitcoin community, is that BIT and future publicly traded bitcoin investment vehicles will improve liquidity and thus help smooth out some of the price volatility that has plagued bitcoin in its early years.

The fact that BIT is also now a regulated entity should help calm the (justified) fears of many prospective bitcoin investors.A more stable bitcoin market is seen as being a necessary pre-condition for widespread adoption as a payment vehicle.The listing of BIT is a welcome bit of good news amid an otherwise brutal period of bitcoin headlines.In addition to plummeting prices, bitcoin headlines over the first two months of this year have been dominated by the trial of convicted Silk Road kingpin Ross Ulbricht, the ongoing bankruptcy proceedings of Mt.Gox, ponzi schemes, a string of exchange and wallet platform hacks, and ineptitude at the industry’s main leadership body.(You wonder why a regulated bitcoin investment, available on a US public exchange is a big deal?)On the brighter side, earlier this year, Coinbase became the first company to launch a regulated bitcoin exchange, doing so in conjunction with the NYSE, which participated in its $75 million mega-round announced just weeks earlier.