Cryptocurrencies experienced a turning point in 2017. They moved from being a niche interest to an everyday talking point. But a lot has changed in one year: bitcoin’s market capitalisation grew 14-fold from $15bn to $221bn, while others, such as Swiscoin, all but disappeared. Meanwhile, a number of cryptocurrencies have far outpaced bitcoin’s growth.

Cryptocurrencies moved from being a niche interest to an everyday conversation point in 2017

Using data from CoinMarketCap, World Finance has compiled a list of the fastest-growing cryptocurrencies of last year, according to market capitalisation.

(Note: the list consists only of those that were already established at the start of the year, with a market capitalisation of over $10m.)

1. Ripple

XRP, the cryptocurrency behind Ripple, is now the second largest behind bitcoin, having surpassed Ethereum over the course of the year. It has seen its market capitalisation go up by 34,590 percent since the start of 2017 following a string of successes in the development of its payments infrastructure.

2. Stellar

Stellar is an open-source protocol for exchanging value. Its market capitalisation increased by 33,630 percent over the course of 2017, ending the year with a total value of over $5bn.

3. NEM

At the start of 2017, NEM was the world’s 11th-largest cryptocurrency, but reached 8th position by the end of the year. Its market capitalisation grew by 25,427 percent over the course of the year.

4. BitShares

BTS, the cryptocurrency behind the BitShares financial platform, has seen its market capitalisation jump from by 15,879 percent, ending the year with a worth of over $1.6bn in total.

5. Ardor

Ardor is a blockchain platform that enables businesses to make their own blockchains. While it is only the 25th-largest cryptocurrency, its market capitalisation grew by 15,215 percent during 2017.