Bitcoin has great potential to increase the world's wealth!

Bitcoin improves efficiency and cuts-out middle men in banking, mobile payments, and international remittance.  It allows people to exchange value instantly, and, unlike cash, it doesn't require two people to be in the same physical spot or to have the correct change.  It will allow the world's "unbanked" to more easily save and it gives all people a sense of privacy and monetary freedom that has never existed before.

And this is only the money aspect of bitcoin.  With coloured coins and smart contracts, who knows what else we will accomplish.  

So, just like how advances in robotics increased the world's wealth by improving manufacturing efficiency, bitcoin will increase the world's wealth by improving monetary efficiency.  

It is emphatically not a zero-sum game.  Later investors increase the value of early investors holdings, giving them the financial power to take time away from their day jobs and put energy into furthering the bitcoin network.  It is really an incredible market-driven funding mechanism unlike anything that has ever existed before!