The six weirdest things Eric Trump just said at a Toronto crypto convention

Last Thursday, cryptocurrency enthusiasts from around the world flocked to Toronto to hear speakers like Dragons’ Den’s Kevin O’Leary and Barstool Sports’ Dave Portnoy talk Bitcoin at Consensus 2025, the self-appointed “Super Bowl of blockchain.” This was the first time the conference, run by digital media company CoinDesk, had been held in Toronto, where seven per cent of the population works in finance. Its main headliner? None other than Eric Trump, the businessman and quintessential middle child of US President Donald Trump.

Clad in a fitted blue suit and flanked by Secret Service agents on either side of the stage, the younger Trump promoted his Bitcoin mining firm, American Bitcoin, in a highly anticipated fireside chat​. Much like his father, he was absurdly eager to extoll America’s virtues, despite its sinking global reputation, before an audience from a country the president continues to threaten to annex. It was all too ridiculous to take seriously, so here are the five unintentionally funniest things Eric Trump said while he was in town.

“First of all, how are you, Canada? It’s great to be up here! We love you guys very much.”

Perhaps the weirdest thing about Eric Trump’s conference address was what he didn’t say: after being greeted with applause, he made no reference to the ongoing trade war his father started with Canada back in February, when the president signed an executive order imposing 25 per cent tariffs on imports from this side of the border. Donald Trump’s rationale for the tariffs? To protect his country from a fictional southward wave of undocumented immigration and drug trafficking. Plus, as of April, the president maintains that he’d like to see our entire sovereign nation become the US’s 51st state. Sure, Eric, Canada loves you too.

Related: Fox News host John Roberts on Trump, the trade war and the American psyche

“When we came up with a name [for American Bitcoin], I said one thing: ‘It’s got to have the word American in it, and it has to have the word Bitcoin in it.’ It’s a pretty simple permutation of that.”

Which is to say, it is actually just that. Cryptocurrency is often touted for its stateless, anonymous and decentralized nature, yet Eric Trump was keen to lean on patriotism in his sales pitch for the flag-waving crypto firm he co-founded in March with Asher Genoot, CEO of Florida-based Hut 8, which was once Canada’s most prominent Bitcoin mining company. Hut 8 relocated its headquarters from Toronto to Miami in 2023, but it still operates data centres in Ontario and BC. Earlier this week, Hut 8 announced that it would become publicly traded after being acquired by US Bitcoin company Gryphon Digital Mining.

Related: The true story of the $46-million heist that shocked the crypto world

“The very same group that was attacking my family—for no other reason whatsoever than their political beliefs—started attacking the crypto community.”

Leaving the identity of this notorious “very same group” tantalizingly unclear, Eric Trump was quick to portray himself as a victim when asked why he’d started American Bitcoin. Perhaps he was thinking of recent accusations in the New York Times that his family’s multiple crypto ventures are in fact vehicles for foreign actors to influence the president. (A spokesperson for President Trump told the Times that those assets were “in a trust managed by his children” and that therefore “there are no conflicts of interest.”)

During Donald Trump’s most recent election campaign, he and his sons started their own cryptocurrency firm, World Liberty Financial. A spokesperson from the company told the Times that it would be “false, absurd and dangerous” to suggest any “political quid pro quo” in its deals. Days before his inauguration, Trump launched his own meme coin, $Trump. In his first 100 days, he overturned several key Biden-era regulations on cryptocurrency, promising to turn the US into the “crypto capital of the world.” No conflicts of interest indeed.

“I understand land. I understand concrete slabs. I understand buildings. I understand energy. I understand cooling.”

Look at how many things this guy understands! Eric Trump was eager to cite his background in real estate when discussing what it took to run crypto-mining data centres. The Renaissance man currently serves as a trustee and executive vice-president of his father’s business, the Trump Organization. But that’s not all: he also appeared as a boardroom judge on his dad’s TV series, The Apprentice. Now that’s leadership material.

Related: The White House used this economist’s research to justify tariffs. They couldn’t have got it more wrong

“Listen, guys, we have the greatest country on earth. Go try and mine Bitcoin in France. Go try to mine Bitcoin in Scotland. You’re just never going to do it. The energy costs are too high.”

A faint “Fuck Trump” could be heard in the distance as Eric Trump began speaking to the virtues of mining Bitcoin in America, where energy is cheaper, though it didn’t elicit a response. One of the major concerns surrounding cryptocurrency, particularly Bitcoin, is its exorbitant energy consumption. To “mine” it, people around the world run powerful computers 24/7, solving complex mathematical problems in order to validate the cryptocurrency’s transactions. The electricity consumption of this mining is on par with that of entire countries. Plenty of this energy still comes from fossil fuels, linking crypto to the climate crisis. Yet, here, Trump brags about taking advantage of America’s cheap oil to run a wildly inefficient currency replacement most people didn’t ask for.

“We have the goal of being the biggest. Asher and I talk about that all the time.”

In his closing remarks, Trump set the modest goal of being the best. And judging by the applause that followed him off the stage, the crypto folk—mostly dudes—were on board, trade war be damned.