Litecoin has reached $320 (£239) this week and risen by 7,291 per cent against bitcoin’s 1,731 per cent increase since the start of this year. 

All eyes have been drawn to bitcoin in the cryptocurrency world but its main competitors are also doing well. 

In order the largest cryptocurrencies are Bitcoin, Ethereal, Bitcoin cash and litecoin.

Litecoin is a fork of bitcoin which occurs when miners agree certain rules within the blockchain need to change.

Miners then change the regulations and create a fork of the original cryptocurrency.

There is no single event explaining why litecoin – which forked from bitcoin in 2011 – has experienced such success this year. 

But some investors may be starting to worry about the size and worth of bitcoin, prompting them to move to other cryptocurrencies they believe are less volatile.

Coinbase also added it to its list of cryptocurrencies this year.

Coinbase is a website where you can buy and sell Bitcoin, Ethereal and Litecoin. 

Litecoin is seen as a faster and more lightweight version of bitcoin because it takes two and a half minutes to complete a transaction where as bitcoin takes 10 minutes.

Charlie Lee, founder of litecoin has also quadrupled the amount of litecoin that can be in circulation. 

The cryptocurrency can have a total of 84 million where as bitcoin can only hold 21 million.

Lee’s aim was never to compete with bitcoin but create something that would compliment the leading cryptocurrency. 

He said: “The vision is always I wanted litecoin to complement bitcoin — not compete. 

“Bitcoin can be used for like moving millions of dollars between banks, buying houses, buying cars. It’s really secure… litecoin can be used for cheaper things.”

Litecoin is also known to have an easier mining process, requiring hardware that is more widely available.