Bitcoin
As anyone that has engaged me in deep / philosophical conversation will know, I'm fascinated with the idea of open source government (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source_governance).
In a nutshell, the need for politicians and a central government disappeared once we were able to have many-to-many communications, which happened when Facebook happened. There's a lot more to it, but that's the gist. On a sidenote, check out https://joindiaspora.com/ which is basically an open-source version of Facebook. Such initiatives will be key in the development of open source governance.
One of the more far-fetched ideas of open source government is open source, distributed currency. Such an idea seems to be the opposite of what you need to have a currency - you need a distributor, a central repository to control the supply as the value of currency comes from it's natural scarcity when pegged to gold, silver etc, or it's artificial scarcity when it is economically illogical to forge and it's distribution is controlled. Without central distribution, you can't do either.
Some very clever guy called Satoshi Nakamoto has come up with an algorithm that is able to artificially limit the supply of something that is completely uncentralised; a peer to peer currency. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin
The possibility are startling - ever since Nikon unpegged the US Dollar from the gold standard in 1971 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_Shock), the US Dollar has been a currency backed by itself - effectively held up by nothing but confidence (see: sheep theory) and it's own supply (see: fractional reserve banking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_reserve_banking).
As a sidenote, ever since the Bretton Woods system came into force in 1944, all currencies were exchanged against the US Dollar, which was itself pegged against gold, thereby ensuring natural scarcity. Nixon's short-sighted, butt-saving fuckup of 1971 was akin to cutting the moorings of a ship with 100 other ships tied to it and saying "well, we're all in this together now guys."
So, the US Dollar is an unbacked currency that is centrally controlled. Bitcoin is an unbacked currency that is not centrally controlled. Apart from some rich men in large buildings saying what a good idea it is, the two are pretty much the same.
This is another example of technology displacing the status quo with a better, fairer, more sustainable, self-regulating system. Which means that, as Jason Calcannis predicted (http://bit.ly/iuAp2g) it will be illegal before it reaches critical mass.
