The price of Ethereum has soared to a record high on Wednesday following upbeat news from the European Investment Bank (EIB).

In early Asian trading on Wednesday, Ethereum rose to $2,709, signalling a new all-time high for the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation, according to Coingecko.

The cryptocurrency metrics provider announced a 7% gain over the last 24 hours, and 15.7% or the past week, pushing Ethereum’s market cap to a record $312 billion.

Although there are several motives behind the Ethereum price hike, a Reuters report out on Wednesday says it is down to the European Investment Bank launching a “digital bond” sale utilising the Ethereum network.

The EIB is issuing a two-year €100 million digital bond, with the sale led by Goldman Sachs, Banco Santander, and Societe Generale, according to Bloomberg analysts.

At the end of last week, it was announced Societe Generale SFH had issued a €100 million bond as a security token on Ethereum’s blockchain.

The bond was awarded the top triple-A rating by Moody’s and Fitch, reports Cointelegraph.

Danny Kim, head of revenue at crypto broker SFOX, told Reuters this is a bullish institutional use case for Ethereum: “The amount of Ethereum sitting on exchanges continues to drop lower and has been the lowest in the past year. With less supply on exchange available, there's less likely a chance of a major sell-off.”

In addition, a revival in DeFi related protocols and tokens, as well as declining gas prices, could also be fuelling momentum.

At the time of writing, reports Cointelegraph, the average transaction price on the network had dropped to $10.73, says Bitinfocharts.

According to renowned crypto analyst, Altcoin Sherpa, ETH would continue to outstrip BTC over the next few weeks, hitting a price of $3,000.