However bitcoin isn't the first cryptocurrency experiment.
But the Flyer One wasn't the first heavier-than-air experiment either.
It may have been only the first to fly for a non-trivial amount of time.
Just like bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency protocol that could actually run in a self-sustained way.
internal combustion engine, propellers, and fixed wings
And each of these hasn't changed much in the last hundred years.
Even the simplest crop duster has many
essential improvements over the Flyer One, and would not be viable without them.
I can't think of one real application that the Flyer One could have been good enough for.
You can push an analogy only so far. Bitcoin has been making incremental improvements for 6 years. It now has armor plating, fly-by-wire, and a Rolls-Royce turboprop. All it needs is a decentralized market for navigation and it will fly through any kind of turbulence.