‘Digital Real Estate’? Eric Trump Further Teases Cryptic Crypto Project - Decrypt
08/14/2024 22:14What is the Trump Organization cooking up around crypto? Eric Trump's latest interview has intriguing, yet unclear hints.
What's the big Trump family crypto move that the former president's sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr. have teased in recent days? Well, Eric Trump just did an interview about it—and it's no clearer now than it was before.
“It’s digital real estate,” Eric Trump told the New York Post in an exclusive interview.
What does that mean? To some, the phrase may conjure images of a Trump metaverse push a couple years after the hype faded. It could also point to the concept of real-world asset tokenization—that is, bringing real estate or other physical assets on-chain and potentially using them as collateral for loans and other crypto-driven financial services.
“It’s equitable. It’s collateral anyone can get access to and do so instantly," Trump added. "I don’t know if people realize what a shake-up that is for the world of banking and finance. I hope we can help change that.”
But the interview doesn't clarify the point, as Trump and team appear to be keeping the full announcement under lock and key for now.
The Post interview comes after Eric and Donald Jr. last week teased a "huge" crypto announcement. Some traders believed it would be an official Donald Trump meme coin to rival the countless unofficial tribute coins, but that premise quickly collapsed after the Trump brothers disavowed the rumor.
"I love how much the crypto community is embracing Trump," Donald Jr. tweeted. "It’s absolutely incredible, but beware of fake tokens claiming to be part of the Trump project. The only official project will be announced directly by us, and it will be fair for everyone. Don't be fooled—stay tuned for the real deal."
Instead, their tweets pointed to a decentralized finance (DeFi) push, using taglines like "BeDeFiant." Twitter sleuthing around Trump family connections points to some kind of DeFi platform or perhaps a tokenization effort around the Trump Organization's own physical real estate, but nothing has been confirmed as of this writing.
Elsewhere in the Post interview, Trump rattles off familiar talking points around how autonomous crypto protocols can promote equity and be less susceptible to bias than traditional financial institutions—and banking the unbanked.
Broadly, it's "Crypto 101" stuff—though it does potentially add more fuel to the fire around Trump crypto plans.
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