Overnight the value of Bitcoin smashed through the $1,000 barrier for the first time, an historic milestone for the crypto-currency that’s now cemented its status as a viable alternative to government-backed fiat currencies.

As SiliconANGLE’s Kyt Dotson reported earlier today, the value of one BTC hit a record high of $1,000.36 USD as a weighted average across multiple Bitcoin exchanges, sitting at about $1070.60 USD on MtGox, the world’s biggest exhange.

This is a remarkable rise for the crypto-currency, which was worth just $10 one year ago, and whose value has shot up by more than 500 percent since the beginning of November.

There’s no doubt that Bitcoin is booming at the moment, and it’s an open question as to how high it will go – although there’s every reason to suspect that it”ll keep on rising for the time being.

Some have attributed Bitcoin’s rising value to the explosion of interest from China, but this is not the only force at work. Just last week, Bitcoin scored a big legislative victory, with the United States Department of Justice and Securities and Exchanges Commission arguing in favor of Bitcoin’s viability in a Senate hearing, receiving support from Congressmen, senior figures from the Obama administration, and justice department and law enforcement officials.

Bitcoin has also been attracting a lot of attention from the media in recent months, with stories of Bitcoin millionaires and multi-million dollar heists generating a buzz that’s helped to put the digital currency in the shop window.

Then there’s the proliferation of Bitcoin-based startups like Coinbase, whose services make it easier for people to buy, sell and mine Bitcoins.

Perhaps more importantly, the last year has seen Bitcoin establish itself as an acceptable form of payment in the real world. Bitcoin Black Friday, in which more than 250 retailers have banded together to accept purchases in BTC without any payment fees, is just the latest example of this.

It’s not only Bitcoin that’s going crazy…

Bitcoin’s rise to ascendancy has been so rapid that many late-comers might feel that they’ve missed the boat, so to speak. It’s unclear how much longer this latest Bitcoin bubble will last – the price could easily come crashing back down to earth in the next few days or weeks, just as it did during the previous ‘bubble’ last April.

But Bitcoin is not the only cryptpcurrency that’s making a stir at the moment – in fact there’s at least a dozen others that are all vying for relevancy at the moment, and many of those are rising just as rapidly against the dollar.

The most prominent of these ‘other’ cryptocurrencies is Litecoin, an alternative to Bitcoin that was founded by Charles Lee in 2011. In the last week, Litcoin has ridden Bitcoin’s digital coattails, gaining 400% against the dollar over the last week. It’s value currently sits at $48.56, according to Coinmarketcap.com.

Also riding high at the moment is Peercoin, now the third-largest digital currency, which has shot up 22 percent against the dollar in the last 24 hours and now sits at $3.84; and Namecoin, the fourth-largest cryptocurrency, which has sky-rocketed by 70 percent in the last 24 hours, and is currently worth $10.56.

And as you can see from this screenshot, the likes of Primecoin, Feathercoin, Novacoin and Infinitecoin aren’t doing too badly either…