Eric Trump: Why a Real Estate Guy Believes in Bitcoin

I'm really looking forward to getting right into this and the timing couldn't be more perfect. Bitcoin, which is the subject of the conversation today, has had an amazing past month, going up almost 25% after sitting in the low 60,000 area for quite some time. You have been no stranger to making price predictions and talking about where you see Bitcoin going over the next several years. Curious to hear your latest thoughts on where you see it from right now and and where it could go maybe end of year and later into the next few years. >> Yeah, well, listen, I was I was buying when it was, you know, in in the high 50s, low 60s. Um, I believe in Bitcoin as much as I believe in anything. You know, you know the story. I think you and I have talked about it before and you've probably heard me speak about it. But, you know, we got into crypto because we became the most debanked family in, you know, arguably in American history, right? I mean, I I run one of the great real estate empires anywhere in the world. Some of the best hotels, golf courses, residential, commercial buildings, etc. And, you know, in the middle of the night, I had, you know, Capital One call me and effectively tell me that 300 bank accounts that had never done anything wrong, you know, were all shut down based on the fact that my father was, you know, in politics. And, you know, these are golf courses. These aren't political entities. These were homeowners associations for for condominiums. You know, some of these entities we didn't even own. Um, you know, again, they were we might have been the the manager of these entities. And, you know, again, because my father, you know, wore a red hat that said, "Make America great again." They wanted to shut us down. And, you know, I realized what what they were doing to us is the very same thing that they were doing to the entire crypto community. I mean, if you were in crypto and, you know, in in in 2020, 2021, they were debanking you. Um, you know, they they treated you like a criminal. Um, and these are people that just thought you could do modern finance a whole hell of a lot better than, you know, the Swift system was doing it, you know, better than JP Morgan was doing it and others. And so, um, listen, I I fell in love with Bitcoin. I founded American Bitcoin, which is amazing. We're one of the largest miners in the world. You know, we're about, you know, almost 29x a hatch. We mine, you know, somewhere between, you know, 11 and 13 BTC a day. Uh, you know, we're doing it at 49% gross margins. And, you know, we're doing it using American American Energy all based in in Texas and and the company's been amazing. Um, I buy a lot of Bitcoin on on on my own. I just believe in it. Um, you know, if you believe that, you know, we have a spending problem, which I do as as much my father is is is beating that back and as much as he's growing our economy, which has been nothing but, you know, spectacular to see. Um, you know, and and by the way, this is all around the world. Um, you kind of believe in kind of an alternative currency. Um, you know, I I certainly believe in decentralized finance. I I I believe in the powers of that. Um, I also believe that we live in the greatest country in the world. we we have the best monetary system um as shaky as it can sometimes be um and and god help yourself if you live in in many other countries right that you don't have a choice right if you live in pretty much the African continent you don't have a choice and all of a sudden you start looking to to BTC because you know it's a it's a hedge against inflation it's a hedge against madness it's a hedge against instability it's a hedge against a lot of things so um listen I will ride BTC forever I believe in it um it cracks me up when you see an asset that's always had a volatility of of of 60 decrease right now. It's gone up what roughly 70% on average year-over-year for the last 10 years and then it it comes back down and you know people start kind of freaking as as if you should have an asset that's only one directional right that's not exactly how the world works. um you have to have, you know, you have to have real spine to be in in cryptocurrency. And I think the people who don't have spine get flushed out and probably lose a lot of money. And the people who have spine and are willing to kind of ride the, you know, the the the tips and the troughs, um are the guys who do awfully well and I'm in it for the long haul as I have been in in it for what the last three, four, five years. >> You mentioned actively buying Bitcoin. Do you have a strategy as to how you go about purchasing it? Is it dollar cost averaging or something different? >> Yeah. Listen, I try and pick the low points and you try and buy in when it's low and you try and hold when it's high and and and add to it even even during those periods of times. But listen, when it started, you know, when it started knocking on on the 50,000 door when it's, you know, 60,000, you know, you're down 50% from alltime highs, it looks like a pretty easy bet to get in, right? I mean, same thing with Ethereum, same thing with other cryptocurrencies that you really believe in. And, you know, that that's when you, you know, actively buy and that's when you kind of, you and so, you know, that's always been a little bit my strategy. No one's going to pick the perfect bottom. um you know, you're going to miss the bottom. Uh but I can tell you, you know, if if if something's down 50% and is something that you have absolute conviction in, as I do, uh with with digital kind of currencies, digital technologies, I mean, name name digitized that hasn't won the long-term race, right? Whether it's um whether it's photography, right? I mean, you go from the 8 millimeter film to live streaming. I mean digitization one you know whether it's you know the telephone whether it's you know you know the these amazing devices that we have I mean digitizing technology has always won right and and analog technology has never won and I don't know why >> you know kind of paper money I don't know why why an old antiquated system like the swift system or the old antiquated slow as hell banking system could ever beat something that is faster cheaper more transparent more userfriendly, more intuitive in in every way, shape, and form. It's it's it's not going to win the race. The traditional system is not going to win the race. Cryptocurrency will win the race. And I believe in that with with every ounce of my being. And you know, I really do believe that Bitcoin will be one of the great assets, one of the great stores of value. And by the way, this is coming from a guy, you know, gov who who spent their entire life building buildings. That's what this what I do, right? I like I'm into assets I can feel and touch that are made out of steel and sheetrock and concrete that have beautiful chandeliers, right? Like I'm I'm a hard asset guy. I I believe in something that's tangible. I never really thought I'd be the guy who believed in something that many people would see as as intangible. When I got into American Bitcoin and you see the 90,000 servers that we have, when you see the the energy that's going into those, when you see the the true cost of securing the network and and actually mining, you realize that it's so much more tangible than than somebody could possibly ever think, you know, that kind of a token would be in in in the stratosphere. Um, and I believe that's the greatest compliment. I mean, for so many reasons, I believe it's the greatest compliment to hard physical assets. >> Compliment's the right word. I think that they can both fit into portfolio there and each kind of as a hedge to other items. How do you think about you have this real estate empire and then really building up the Bitcoin side of the business and how people should think about real estate and Bitcoin fitting into their portfolio side by side. >> Well, listen, you see it every day, right? And I'm not I don't mean to get political. I got out of the political sphere and but you know you look at you look at you know states like California right you look at states like like New York they've had the greatest flight of people I mean New York lo has lost I think 900,000 million people very high net worth people who have all left right a lot of businesses have left the state and it breaks my heart I'm a you know I grew up in New York I worked in New York I run many buildings in New York and you know I can't just pick up Trump Tower now Trump Tower is you know 57th and fifth right it's probably the best location anywhere in New York Trump Tower does exceedingly well but I can't just pick up Trump Tower using a silly example and teleport port it down to Miami where all those people ended up going, right? It doesn't it doesn't work. So, it's a it's you know, hard assets are amazing. They appreciate in value tremendously. Um, you know, but but they're stuck in a certain location. They're immovable. They're they're they're very illquid on a relative basis. I mean, how many people out there do you think could write a check to go buy Trump Tower right now? You know, very very very few. >> Um, you know, versus you take the opposite, right? And by the way, you could have a fire in a building, you could have insurance problems in a building, you can have, you know, crappy management in a building, right? I mean, I can go down the list of of of things, right? You could have political unrest in a city. You could have bad government. You could have bad mayors. I mean, we've seen plenty of those in in New York City. You could have taxation problems in New York. You could have, you know, you name it. You could have congestion pricing where if they go below a 59th Street, they have to pay $20, right? Another stupid thing that New York's putting in that you could have MTA train problems, right? You don't have any of that when it when it comes to to to Bitcoin. You know, you have an asset that's liquid 24 hours a day, 7 days, you know, a week. um that's that's totally global that get can't be taken that can't be burned that can't get destroyed in a storm that you know it's just it's a different store of value and one that I think is incredibly powerful and again you know we're all sitting here as Americans we have the best form of of government we we have by far the best economy in the world right we're what $34 trillion we we you know what's China right now $22.5 trillion roughly I mean it's not even by the way we we do that with 15 the amount of people it's not even close I mean we are we are the absolute leader in every way, shape and form. And again, we can still find tremendous value in digital assets over here. Again, imagine being in so many of these countries around the world which are facing, look at Argentina, you know, even before Millie, you know, you had a country that was facing 60, 70, 80% inflation a year. You get your paycheck and every single day, you know, that paycheck was absolutely going to hell. Now, if you lived in a country like that, what's your play? My play would be to put in Bitcoin, an asset that's traditionally gone up 70% a year, as opposed to losing 50% of your net worth by leaving in a local currency that, you know, that that has no value to it and has no real liquidity to it and, you know, is is being put under enormous pressure by politicians and archaic rules and, you know, weird stimulus and and and other things. So, Bitcoin and and just digital assets in general, you know, the role that they play um for the individual and for economic freedom and and around the world, it's it's it's incredible. And I think it's one of the reasons that they're doing so well. And you know, you look at kind of the Clarity Act, what we're trying to do here. You know, every country pretty much has a version of the Clarity Act that's going through. Russia just passed their version of effectively the Clarity Act. I mean the way countries are embracing largely because of what America and my father has done but the way countries are starting to embrace digital assets you know if you look outside of the 50 states is incredible. I mean this is happening globally. Look at what you know South Korea is doing when it comes to look at what Vietnam is doing. Look at what obviously I just mentioned Russia. Look at what so many of the countries in South America are doing in terms of embracing digital assets. Um you know look at what the UAE is doing for instance. I mean, they've really become a global hub of of of digital currencies right now. You know, people are sprinting toward it and and even places that are super regulated, i.e. China. You know, I spoke at at Bitcoin Hong Kong. I think I had 25 26,000 people show up to hear me speak. So, you otherwise have a regulated market where you fill up, you know, major arenas, you know, and major convention halls with, you know, with 25 thou plus thousand people who are that interested. And this is this is, you know, coming out of a closed society where they're not even technically allowed to own cryptocurrency, right? Like that that's really the magnitude of it. That's the power of it. That's how much people love it. And then obviously you look at our generation. I put you and I obviously in the same generation, but you look at the way we've embraced it and how we've had fun with it. And you know, and then you last but not least, you take this AI boom. The faster AI explodes, the faster cryptocurrency explodes. you know, if I go on Claude and I ask to to book my wife and I a a beautiful trip to um you know, to the Maldes, right? I'm not paying for that using hard dollars. You know, how I'm going to pay for that? I'm going to use it for through you know, kind of tokenized assets and and you're going to have AI linked up to your digital wise. So, it's the faster you see this incredible boom that we're seeing, you know, mainly in the US because we're clearly leading the way in that and in cryptocurrency. So the faster we see this AI revolution, the faster you're going to see cryptocurrency kind of evolve and become, you know, mainstream. And listen, when JP Morgan, >> you know, when when you literally have the CEO of JP Morgan who was was dogging cryptocurrency, you know, 18 months ago, >> you know, and now and now he's out there every single day, you know, JP Morgan just released their whole, you know, mortgage back securities where you could effectively, >> you know, collateralize your your Bitcoin holdings to go get a, you know, mortgage on a house. Something's changing in the world, right? And you're seeing that with Fidelity. You're seeing that with Schwab. You're seeing that with I mean, obviously Black Rockck, they've done a phenomenal job. again JP Morgan you're seeing that with Cityroup right now and um a lot of amazing things are happening that are making this incredibly mainstream e even relative to 18 months ago and and that's very exciting.