I would argue that a species that evolved it before they evolved intelligence would never evolve intelligence, while a species that developed it after they evolved intelligence would wipe themselves out.
Once long ago I read a short story about an altruistic alien people who exchanged this dull silver metal with each other for commerce and everyone had enough and everyone was happy. Then one day a greedy alien was born and he started hoarding as much silver metal as he could into a pile. Then the plutonium reached critical mass, blew him to smithereens, wiped out his entire town and the cycle started anew with no one remembering that their coins exploded when you had too many of them and greed never evolved. Questionable physics, questionable morality, amusing thought experiment. Wish I could find the story to link it, but I've already given away the joke.