Spoiler alert!! It simply means change over time! But with such a simple explanation, why is it that so many people are confused about what it truly means?
I see the word 'evolution' being thrown around like candy these days. Most of the time, it's completely warranted. I mean, all we're talking about is change over time. But occasionally you see it tossed into some pretty strange places, mainly because the word itself sounds legitimate and scientific. It's similar to the word 'quantum', in that if someone wants to make something sound scientific, they simply add a little quantum to the mix, and presto! Science!
So then... what is evolution, and why should I care? Well, to answer that, we have to start with Darwin.
I know, I know... Darwin is boring. The last thing you want to do is sit through another High School biology lecture on the guy, but hear me out. Skipping passed all the gallivanting through the world and Galapagos Islands, Darwin was the first to realize that animals looked very similar to one another, from a skeleton standpoint (well, not entirely, but it works in this sense), irregardless of where they were on the planet.
The important word here is homologous. Basically it means similar, yet different.
By Волков Владислав Петрович - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37704829
Simply looking at the commonalities of the various specimens he had collected over his 5 year trek around the world, he began to develop a very monumental idea: if you could rewind time, every single life form on this planet would be related to one single common ancestor.
Over the course of time, individuals began to migrate around the planet, thereby experiencing different environmental constraints. These constraints placed a demand to adapt to the situation, which they did, and in turn caused them to split off from the species they once belonged to. Simply put, they evolved. Now, evolution is combination of a few different processes, such as Natural and Sexual Selection, and those deserve their own post to just get down the super basics. But for now, let's leave it there.
So now the question is, why should you care about this?
Evolution isn't unique to biology. Remember, it simply means change over time. Evolution occurs everywhere we can comprehend; physics, chemistry, and most relevant to many here: economies. Now, I'm no economist, professional or amateur, so I won't even pretend to discuss that here. But from a very broad point of view, if you hit the rewind button on mankind, you would see the very first economy develop, which would include the first bartering system and place holders for perceived value, and the various split offs from there.
This more than likely isn't news to most of you. But I'm not trying to blow your mind with new information here. I'm simply trying to reinforce the ground with which we all stand on. It's easy to forget the simple basics once we delve into the deeper stuff.
The facts are these: if something is a product of evolution, it will have homologous structures with other systems. It will have had some beginning, and will also be in a state of change at the current moment. Nothing can be stagnant out of necessity. We must also come to understand that just because some system has evolved to its current state, this doesn't necessarily mean it is the best or most efficient possible iteration. It is simply a product of the current constraints being placed on it by its environment.
Certain systems seem to remain constant, such as the crocodile in biology. Crocodiles have essentially existed in their current state, or very close to it, for millions upon millions of years. This doesn't mean that they have found the pinnacle form for all biology by any means. It's just that they have found a form that fits very well to the demands it's environment is putting upon it. Unless something drastic occurs, they are likely to stay in their current form for the foreseen future.
Human beings are in a very similar state. If you remove all of the various Artificial Selection processes currently being acted upon our species (gene editing, AI merging, climate change, etc), we will stay in something similar to our current form for the foreseen future as well. The fact is, there's nothing really putting pressure on us to evolve to something different from where we're currently at.
I think the questions that all of this has been leading to, and why I personally think this is relevant to us all is, how does cryptocurrency fit into all of this? What were the constraints put upon the systems that demanded this evolution? Where does it go from here? Is this the evolutionary iteration that is analogous to the crocodile?
I'm positive that many of you could answer a few, if not all of these questions. I'm not going to pretend that I have anything close to an answer. I think much of this depends upon point of view and personal opinions, but also an education that far exceeds my own. However, just coming from the biology side of all this, I still find it curiously interesting to think about.