February 17, 2026 | Podcast
The Active Share Podcast
The Active Share Podcast
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On this episode of SuiteTalk, Hugo sits down with Martin Bruncko, CEO and founder of Schuman Financial, which is the issuer of EURØP, a regulated, fully backed euro stablecoin. They discuss Martin’s journey from tech entrepreneur and investor to a leader shaping digital finance and break down why financial services are moving on-chain. The conversation also explores the technological barriers slowing adoption and the transformative potential of stablecoins and blockchain technology.
Comments are edited excerpts from our podcast, which you can listen to in full below.
Martin Bruncko: I’m drawn to work that really changes the world, or at least my corner of it, at scale. That’s been the common thread in my government work, nonprofit roles, and everything I’ve done as an entrepreneur over the past 15 to 20 years.
Martin: I’ve become more relaxed over time. I also make decisions faster than I used to.
And this is one of those truisms you hear in your first business or management class, but it’s really all about the people you surround yourself with. I now pay even more attention to the teams I build because the better the team, the less you have to grind to achieve results.
Martin: I live in France, and it’s quite striking how little urgency there is around growth and innovation. The focus is largely on redistribution.
I think that’s part of Europe’s broader problem. We’ve become more complacent as societies and as governments. For example, in France, public spending is about 57% of gross domestic product (GDP), compared to less than 40% in the United States and less than 50% in some of the fastest-growing European economies such as those in Central and Eastern Europe.
Martin: Schumann Financial is the largest ecosystem behind the largest independent euro-denominated stablecoin in Europe. We’re regulated in France by the country’s central bank and audited by KPMG. We also hold an electronic money institution (EMI) license, which allows us to issue stablecoins and provide related e-money and payment services tied to the euro.
The problem we’re trying to solve is quite simple. We strongly believe that financial services are moving on-chain, or onto the blockchain, and most of them will eventually operate there. Just as non-financial services moved to the internet because it became the best way to store and transmit information, blockchain and distributed ledger technology offer a better way to store and transfer financial value.
We’re in the very early stages of this transition. But as the technology matures, more and more financial services will move on-chain.
And given the size of euro-denominated financial services, which is roughly a third of dollar-based markets (depending on the segment), it’s clear that when this shift happens, euro transactions will need to settle on-chain. That’s what we’re building: the core infrastructure for the future of finance.
We strongly believe that financial services are moving on-chain, or onto the blockchain, and most of them will eventually operate there.
Martin: A stablecoin is essentially a digital token issued on a blockchain that’s backed one-to-one by a fiat currency[1]. So, a euro stablecoin is basically a digital version of the euro on the blockchain.
For every euro stablecoin that’s issued, the issuer holds one actual euro in reserve to guarantee the peg. That’s what keeps the value stable and ensures it stays one-to-one. The key is making sure you always have at least one unit of fiat currency in reserve for every stablecoin in circulation.
Martin: One use-case is payments, especially cross-border payments, because it’s a much faster and more efficient way to move money.
Transactions settle in just a few seconds, no matter where the users are located. In contrast, if you send one euro from France to Slovakia, it might be instant, but usually it isn’t. And if you’re sending one euro from Namibia to Peru, it could easily take a week.
Martin: The main adoption barrier is that most traditional financial services haven’t really moved onto the blockchain yet; they’re still run on legacy systems.
However, the dollar stablecoin market has become quite large, mainly because dollar stablecoins historically have been used for trading crypto assets, which have typically been denominated in U.S. dollars, similar to some commodity markets. That created a sizable U.S. dollar stablecoin market. But even that market is still tiny compared to what it could become once traditional financial services start moving on-chain more broadly.
Martin: Regulation is critical because it provides clarity into what you can and cannot do, and in Europe, that framework is largely in place. Europe has been a global leader with its Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) regulatory framework, which came into force over the past couple of years.
But the real hurdle is the state of the technology. It’s similar to where the internet was in the late 1990s; the infrastructure existed, but people hadn’t figured out how to deliver everyday services online. That required innovation in areas such as logistics, delivery, and mobile technology.
We’re in a similar stage today with blockchain and stablecoins. The ecosystem is still figuring out all the pieces needed to provide financial services on-chain at scale.
Martin: The first question is interesting conceptually, but I don’t think it’s a major driver right now. The real driver is the shift of financial services onto the blockchain, and in that context, the currency itself matters less than the infrastructure.
The second question, though, is critical. If most financial services move on-chain and Europe continues to fall behind in this technology, then it risks becoming a global laggard. And without strong infrastructure for euro-denominated services on-chain, the euro’s global role will gradually decline.
There are many regions, including parts of Western and Northern Africa, where euro-denominated financial services are widely used. If the euro doesn’t advance properly on-chain, especially if progress is blocked by regulation, the U.S. dollar could likely fill the gap.
Without strong infrastructure for euro-denominated services on-chain, the euro’s global role will gradually decline.
Martin: Absolutely. And I think that’s one reason the current U.S. administration has been so supportive of stablecoins. In both the United States and Europe, regulations require stablecoin issuers to invest their reserves in highly liquid, low-risk assets, which in practice means government bonds.
You can already see this in Tether, the world’s largest dollar-denominated stablecoin issuer, as it’s also one of the largest buyers of U.S. government debt.
If this asset class grows by a couple of orders of magnitude, it could create enormous demand for government bonds. That’s clearly positive for today’s heavily indebted governments.
Unfortunately, many European leaders haven’t fully grasped this yet. But once they realize that stablecoins can become a major source of government debt financing, I think they’ll become much more open to adoption.
Martin: Stablecoins aren’t like traditional money. They’re programmable, which means you can set them up to execute based on predefined criteria. As digital agents start interacting with each other, stablecoins could become a natural way to handle payments between them. They enable transactions to happen automatically, in a pre-programmed way, without human intervention.
Martin: Yes. Think about what happened with smartphones. Companies such as Nokia and BlackBerry had early versions that worked, but they weren’t truly transformative. Then, Apple came along with a much better product, and that became the catalyst for adoption.
I think we could see the same kind of dynamic with stablecoins. There are several forces that could act as a catalyst for massive growth in the stablecoin ecosystem and in stablecoins as an asset class. It’s hard to say exactly when or how fast it will happen, but we’re quite bullish. We believe we’re on the cusp of this so-called revolution.
If this asset class grows by a couple of orders of magnitude, it could create enormous demand for government bonds.
Martin: This is one of those technologies where existing companies can still win if they adapt. Even the players most at risk can remain successful if they move quickly, including legacy financial services firms and banks or card networks such as Visa and Mastercard. This shift could be a major opportunity for them. But if they fail to adapt, it could be highly disruptive, much like the first wave of fintech was for certain institutions.
A good example is brokerages. Some traditional firms were able to adopt digital platforms early and effectively, and they’re still major global players today, and in many cases, much larger than before. Others never made the transition to the internet, and they’ve largely disappeared.
Martin: If you look at the existing financial system, it’s worth asking whether it’s performing or whether a new technology could improve it.
Traditional financial services and legacy systems have been developed over decades. They’ve also been regulated and stress-tested, so in that sense, they’re fairly resilient. And I’m unsure if there’s an obvious type of crisis where these legacy systems would fail and blockchain would clearly demonstrate its superiority.
But I believe blockchain is a better technology for certain aspects of economic activity. Just like the internet, I expect that in 10 to 20 years, financial activity and much of the global economy will be operating on-chain.
Martin: I think CBDCs have some use-cases, particularly in wholesale finance such as transfers between central banks and commercial banks. But personally, I’m not a huge believer in them.
The main reason is that national currencies on the blockchain are only partly infrastructural; a lot of the value lies in the application layer. You can’t just build the technology and expect everyone to adopt it. Thus, getting people to use euros or dollars on the blockchain, and integrating traditional financial services, requires a lot of business development, hand-holding, and customized infrastructure for providers. I just don’t see central banks hiring the necessary teams to do all that in the private sector.
I think CBDCs have some use-cases, but personally, I’m not a huge believer in them.
Martin: It goes back to our earlier discussion about how quickly this technology will spread. I think we’re quite close to a mass-adoption moment and could see the Uber or Spotify of financial services launch soon.
The challenge right now, however, is we don’t yet know who those companies or business models will be, much like nobody could have predicted in 2000 exactly how Uber would transform transportation.
Martin: Stablecoin technology is about the underlying infrastructure. There will certainly be obvious, highly visible consumer-use cases, but most of the disruption and revolution will happen at the business-to-business level—driving cost savings and faster services.
And over time, hopefully those improvements will translate into better business-to-consumer experiences as well.
[1] A fiat currency is a government-issued form of money that isn’t backed by a physical commodity such as gold or silver. Its value comes from the fact that a government declares it to be legal tender and people trust and use it.
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