DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Eric Trump has a warning for banks: change the way you operate, or go extinct.”The modern financial system is broken, it’s slow, it’s expensive,” the executive vice president of the Trump Organization told CNBC’s Dan Murphy in Dubai while discussing the United Arab Emirates’ development as a cryptocurrency hub.”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. SWIFT is an absolute disaster,” Eric Trump said on Tuesday, referring to the global international messaging network for financial transactions.He lambasted what he described as the slowness and inefficiency of the traditional banking system, calling it “antiquated” — a criticism held by many, especially crypto enthusiasts.The second son of U.S. President Donald Trump has made frequent visits to the UAE in recent years amid expanding Trump-branded real estate projects in the country and wider Gulf region — and as the desert sheikhdom rapidly becomes a global hub for cryptocurrency.A vocal advocate of digital currencies, Eric Trump in December predicted that bitcoin would reach $1 million while attending the Bitcoin MENA 2024 conference in Abu Dhabi. Crypto markets have proven to be highly volatile amid a sell-off of risk assets, stoked by President Trump’s trade tariffs imposed on countries worldwide. Bitcoin was trading around $95,357 late Tuesday.”Our banking system favors the ultra-wealthy,” Eric Trump said. “And what actually got me into [cryptocurrency] is the fact I realized our …
