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

About this episode

The episode features Aleksi Grym discussing central banking, stablecoins, and the implications of the digital euro.

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…

People in this episode

Hosts: Pål Krogdahl, Ville Sointu

Guest: Aleksi Grym

Topics covered

• central banking
• stablecoins
• CBDCs
• payments
• digital euro
• Finland's 1990s Avant card

Keywords

• central banks
• crypto
• stablecoins
• payments
• digital euro
• merchant acceptance
• payment sovereignty

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Bank of Finland

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