Rise

"People are investing, I think, exuberantly. In a way, they are hoping for irrational economic profits they are not going to get," Mr Sammartino said.

"There have been more than 100 ICOs (initial coin offerings) this year."
Unlike the IPO (initial public offering) of a company in the share market, ICOs are not backed by any real, intrinsic value.

"Anyone could start a coin by putting a platform out there and releasing coins on the market using open source software," Mr Sammartino said.

"The problem is these ICOs fall outside the governance of the SEC [US Securities and Exchange Commission] and ASIC [Australian Securities and Investments Commission], but they behave like IPOs in the stock market.

"Creative technologists can raise large amounts of capital with the new cryptocurrency, [then] exit their own position without any regulatory approvals or oversights."

The rise of number two - ethereum
Investors who think bitcoins are too expensive, or are looking for higher yields, are turning to some of the alternative cryptocurrencies.

Bitcoin's 245 per cent surge this year is just a blip, when compared to the bull run of ethereum, which was launched in 2014.

Since January 3, the price of an ethereum unit has surged by more than 2,000 per cent - from $12.69 (US$9.48) to its record-high of $257.59 (US$192.32) on May 24.

One reason for the massive uptake in ethereum is the endorsement it has received from multinational powerhouses including Accenture, Microsoft, Intel, JPMorgan Chase and UBS.

In late-February, those corporate giants (plus two dozen other companies) teamed up to form the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA).

Credit Suisse, ING, Bank of New York and Thomson Reuters were also among the founding members of EEA.

The alliance was formed to "build, promote and broadly support ethereum-based technology best practices, standards and a reference architecture," according to a statement released by the EEA.

Since its formation, more than 80 other multinationals have joined the EEA including Toyota, State Street, Merck and Rabobank.