The existing financial system is one where the money supply is controlled by private bankers. Money is created by banks when they issue loans (mostly mortgages)

The existing financial system is one where the money supply is controlled by private bankers. Money is created by banks when they issue loans (mostly mortgages) and destroyed when people pay the loans back. When a bank issues a mortgage to a first time buyer of, say, 300,000 credits, that 300k is brand new money injected into the system. The loan will be slowly paid off, but over the span of maybe 30 years that single loan will contribute on average 150k of money in the system. Almost all of the money in the system is just people's loans they haven't paid back yet. If the banks issue more loans, the money supply increases, if they issue fewer it decreases. This sounds stupid and most people usually think "there must be something more to it, but I don't understand". Well, there isn't. Money is just made up numbers that we use to do accounting. The only thing that is real is physical (houses, food, minerals, energy etc.) To attempt to reign in the stupidity, governments have created layers upon layers of regulation to the extent that much of finance is basically working out how to keep legally creaming off the top of the money supply. They play silly games with each other where they trade bits of paper until one of them is left holding the bag. The trouble is the silly games end up affecting everyone else because we actually use this money to do real finance, like paying for food and shelter, insurance, savings etc. Read up on the 2008 financial crisis. There's a very entertaining book and subsequent film called The Big Short which is highly recommended. Bitcoin was started as a direct response to the events that played out around 2008.