Eric Trump, executive vice president of the Trump Organization and the younger son of President Donald Trump, criticized the current financial system as outdated and inefficient, suggesting that cryptocurrency offers a faster and more cost-effective alternative.
What Happened: Speaking this week in Dubai, he warned that traditional banks could become obsolete within the next decade if they fail to adapt.
In a thorough critique delivered during his visit to the UAE, which is an emerging hub for digital currencies, Trump called SWIFT "an absolute disaster."
He said, "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," in a conversation with CNBC.
"The modern financial system is broken, it's slow, it's expensive," he said. "If the banks don't watch what's coming, they're going to be extinct in 10 years." He argued that decentralized finance allows for private, low-cost transactions and said that the U.S. banking system "favors the ultra-wealthy" and is politically weaponized.
To establish his point about the increasing irrelevance of banks, Trump said: "You can open up a DeFi app right now, you can open up any cryptocurrency app, and you can send money, wallet to wallet, instantaneously, without the expense, without the variability" of banks.
Why It Matters: Trump's remarks come at a time when major banks like JP Morgan are creating blockchain platforms and crypto services to keep up with the rapid scale of digital transformation. His comments also coincide with increasing regulatory scrutiny of crypto markets after notable episodes of volatility and collapses.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has fashioned itself as a champion of digital currencies, and the Trump family is entangled with initiatives such as the World Liberty Financial and American Bitcoin.
Eric Trump's comments come just ahead of his father's scheduled trip to the Gulf from May 13 to 16, with stops in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. The visit will mark the first time a U.S. president has visited the Emirati sheikhdom since George W. Bush in 2008.
Trump, dubbed the “crypto president,” recently completed his first 100. While he delivered on his campaign promise to establish a national Bitcoin Strategic Reserve, funded with coins seized through asset forfeiture, the move hasn’t put a stop to Bitcoin's slide. The cryptocurrency, which hit an all-time high of $109,000 before Trump's inauguration, has since fallen more than 13%.
Analysts attribute the decline to increasing economic turmoil catalyzed by Trump's aggressive tariff policies. Despite a brief rebound from a low of $76,000, Bitcoin remains far below its peak.
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