Ethereum is over $4,000—here’s how much money you’d have if you invested $1,000 at the beginning of 2021

(CNBC)-Just a week after dogecoin’s massive rally, during which the coin surpassed the 70-cent mark for the first time in the lead-up to Elon Musk’s hosting appearance on “Saturday Night Live,” ethereum is taking its turn in the spotlight.

The coin has been on a massive tear in recent days, nearly doubling in value over the past month. The world’s second-biggest cryptocurrency by market cap now costs more than $4,000 per coin, a far cry from the $176 it was commanding a year ago.

Unlike dogecoin, whose rise has been fueled by tweets and Reddit threads, ethereum has support from institutional investors and has been the cryptocurrency of choice for blockbuster multimillion-dollar NFT transactions.

It is built on blockchain technology just like bitcoin, but instead of being viewed by its proponents as a store of value akin to gold, it is seen by investors such as Mark Cuban as having a higher utilization. That’s because one of its uses is as infrastructure for a decentralized internet, and people can build apps on the Ethereum network.

With a market cap of $481.8 billion — bigger than Coca-Cola, Snap Inc. and Ford Motor Co. combined — ethereum trails only bitcoin’s $1.1 trillion market cap in the crypto world.

An investment in ethereum at the beginning of the year would have seen strong growth over the ensuing months. A $1,000 ethereum purchase on Jan. 1 — at a price of $730.97 per coin — would be worth $5,710.85 at Monday morning’s price of $4,174.46, a gain of 471%, according to CNBC calculations.

That beats bitcoin’s 2021 growth. A $1,000 bitcoin purchase would be worth $1,984.13 at Wednesday’s price of $58,359.98.

It is important, however, to keep in mind that past performance is no guarantee of future returns. Experts have cautioned investors to put no more money into cryptocurrencies than they are comfortable losing