I love nature. I especially love fungi - which have the necessary task of breaking down weakened organisms, bringing on death, recycling the nutrients and delivering those nutrients to stronger organisms - usually through soil. We humans have fungi in our bodies laying in wait... as we weaken these fungi strengthen, hastening death - ready to give our nutrients back to the soil so other organisms can benefit. As a result fungi make systems more efficient.
Manmade systems, like governments and economies are products of evolution and thus also evolve the equivalents of fungi that consistently re-inject life into our systems and recycle components. Social media, like twitter and facebook, have been the fungi of despotic government systems - giving power back to citizens to build new, more equitable governments. Napster/Kazaa/etc were the fungi of music and entertainment systems - making them more efficient, more equitable to creators and allowing for more meaningful music for listeners. The internet itself is a network of fungi, changing the world and evolving human consciousness in many different ways. The ability for this network of fungi to break down and recycle systems grows stronger over time.
Our financial systems have delivered enormous benefit to humanity. But more recently have grown into a network of systems that stray far from their purpose of facilitating commerce, exchange of value and investment. Trillions of dollars of derivatives have created a house of cards that serves no human purpose in the financial ecosystem - except to usurp value and increase inequality. These systems have to date avoided and subverted the fungal power of the internet. But fungi grow well in darkness and a powerful fungus has quietly evolved in the dark corners of the internet. Even if it has a myriad of potential uses, this fungus evolved for one purpose - to seek out global financial system's weaknesses and to return its components to a more natural state.
This fungus is called bitcoin.