Real big transformative ideas in computer science are very rare. A solution for the double-spending problem in distributed databases was published in 2008. Since the beginning of the commercial internet in the early ’90s, that was one of the pitfalls to be overcome in the goal of creating a pure digital asset. Satoshi solved that problem in such an elegant way. All other design decisions made by Satoshi were also elegant, such as creating absolute scarcity by setting a finite supply of Bitcoin, choosing EC secp256k1, etc. Regarding creating distributed applications, honestly, I would use the Java Virtual Machine.