Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency. The central difference to traditional currencies is the decentralized attitude of the data and the settlement without middlemen such as states, banks and central regulators.
The future of Bitcoin will be unclear from today's perspective.
The technical implementation, namely to fix all transactions chronologically unchangeable in the form of a chain, was probably a similar far-reaching innovation as the Internet or the smartphone.
Actually, the question is whether the blockchain was a good idea. A technology that will radically change our business practices. What is certain is that the blockchain places very high demands on the computing power of the hardware used and has only now become possible.
The run on ICO's (initial coin offers), which build on blockchain technologies, the sheer mass of various projects in addition, clearly indicates that market participants consider Blockchain to be the future technology, but have not yet decided is what currencies or concepts that will ultimately prevail.
Bitcoin was the first currency based on the Blockchain and requires comparatively extremely high computing power to validate the individual blocks. Therefore, personally, I rather doubt the long-term relevance.
