technical merit/innovation   you know its all about being a currency, not a mission to Mars, but that's been lost on the out of touch with reality nerdy types behind crypto for the longest time; hell you know shells are still used my more people today on the planet then Bitcoin is  

Bitcoin (and the rest of crypto) has almost zero value as a currency, the sole 'success' of Bitcoin todate is its 'price' increase not its value., and the mechanism for the price increase is nothing more then the Greater Fool Theory;

The Greater Fool Theory states that the price of an object is determined not by its intrinsic value, but rather by irrational beliefs and expectations of market participants. A price can be justified by a rational buyer under the belief that another party is willing to pay an even higher price. In other words, one may pay a price that seems "foolishly" high because one may rationally have the expectation that the item can be resold to a "greater fool" later.

So lets all be honest here for a change.

(no bitterness here by the way, just being honest, i've been very lucky as a trader to be in crypto when bitcoin was single digit price, and tis been a amazing run that's dwarfed my real world earnings longtime back, but i still have a dream that p2p currency could have been something).