Eric Trump, a longtime and fervent proponent of cryptocurrency, has sent a scary message to traditional banks. He argues they risk becoming obsolete within the next ten years unless they evolve to a rapidly developing digital currency ecosystem. He gave the keynote address at this year’s Bitcoin MENA 2024 conference, held in Abu Dhabi. He stressed the need for banks to quickly understand the growing importance and impact of cryptocurrencies and react accordingly.
In the past three years alone, crypto has grown from a $60 billion to a $3 trillion. He views them as a big threat to the existing banking establishment. He emphasized how broken the current system is, labeling it “broken,” “slow” and “expensive.” Before becoming the Director of Special Projects for the U.S. His embeddedness in the industry goes further, as he recently helped to launch a new bitcoin mining company named American Bitcoin, and plans to bring a US dollar-backed stablecoin to market through World Liberty Financial.
Eric Trump was a co-founder of the now-defunct World Liberty Financial, started by real estate billionaire and current White House Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff. This partnership is evident of his dedication to make the traditional financial industry more welcoming for cryptocurrency. He’s convinced that the banking system has been “weaponized” against the rest of us living in the United States. Instead, it serves only the needs of the ultra-wealthy.
He hammered the Russian banks’ exclusion from the global financial messaging network SWIFT, calling it “an utter catastrophe.” For him, blockchain technology represents a better way to deliver financial transactions. He argued, “There’s nothing that can be done on blockchain that can’t be done better than the way that the current financial institutions are working.”
Eric Trump has a particularly hands-on role on the other side of World Liberty Financial. Equally important, he crafts meaningful relationships with decision makers in the Arab Gulf. He has traveled often to the UAE in recent years. The Trump Organization is going to town on their nice, cozy, pro-business regulatory environment, too, massively expanding their real estate footprint in the process. His positive assessments of the UAE as a global hub for cryptocurrency development reflect his belief in its potential as a key growth market.
Donald Trump is already preparing for trip of his own to the Gulf region from May 13–16. On the campaign trail, Eric Trump has been making the case that his father will be the one to make America the world’s crypto capital. This is consistent with their overall approach to experiment with new technologies such as blockchain in the financial services sector.
Eric Trump bets bitcoin will be worth $500,000 one day. He hopes to see it jump to $1 million by December 2024. This projection further highlights his optimism on how the disruptive potential of crypto can disrupt the banking industry as we know it.
“If banks don’t watch what’s coming, they’re going to be extinct in 10 years.” – Eric Trump
His comments at that conference really resonated with us and a lot of different players in the fintech ecosystem. They are deeply concerned about the ascent of cryptocurrencies. The move towards digital currencies of all kinds may encourage major and sweeping improvements to the way financial transactions are done both nationally and globally. More consumers and businesses are actively looking for alternatives to traditional banking than ever before. Eric Trump’s forecasts could mark a crucial third act for banks.
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