Ethereum market cap flips PayPal as it reaches new ATH

In the early hours of Wednesday, Ethereum's price moved by 7 percent, pushing the asset to a new all-time high which is above $2700, according to data from Coinmarketcap. This also pushed its market cap beyond $310 billion, which placed it on par with leading financial institution PayPal.

While the asset's value has since corrected to around $2690, the second-largest crypto asset by market cap has risen by 258 percent this year. This is significantly more than the flagship crypto coin, Bitcoin, which has gained 98 percent during the year.

Some industry analysts have ascribed the improved price movement seen in the crypto asset to the proposed plan of the European Investment Bank to issue a 2-year bond in the asset. The growth of the DeFi ecosystem is also another major contributor to the price surge of the asset. ETH is the adopted currency within the space.

Also, recently, the Ethereum network set another record, with close to 1.6 million transactions processed in one day.