Stablecoins, CBDCs, and Finland’s 1990s Warning Shot with Aleksi Grym

We’re back in central-bank territory with Aleksi Grym from the Bank of Finland, and once again manage to turn a perfectly sensible conversation into a deep dive on money, payments, and why nothing in this space is ever as straightforward as it sounds.

Starting with what central banks actually do (spoiler: more than just printing money), we move into crypto, stablecoins, and why most of their real-world impact still happens inside the crypto ecosystem (or is it.a casino?) itself. Aleksi calmly explains why hype is cheap, plumbing is hard, and payments tend to break in very predictable ways.

Naturally, we end up talking about the digital euro — not as a shiny new payment rail, but as a long-term infrastructure project. Less “instant innovation,” more “who controls the rails, and should Europe care?” Along the way, Finland’s 1990s Avant card makes a comeback, proving that many of today’s “new” problems have already been tried once — just with worse UX.

We also touch on:

.- Why merchant acceptance matters more than speed

.- Why prefunding sounds logical until users meet it

.- And why most people won’t care about payment sovereignty… until they suddenly have to

In short: the kind of episode where you learn something useful and still laugh a little at how we keep learning the same lessons over and over again.

Episode hosted by Pål Krogdahl & Ville Sointu

Episode produced and edited by Fintech Daydreaming

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- Pål Krogdahl - https://www.linkedin.com/in/krogdahl/

- Ville Sointu - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ville-sointu-54682b/