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Blockchain and the bitcoin are new and useful
Unfortunately, the useful part is not new and the new part is not useful.
The useful-but-not-new part is that its data structure is a Merkle tree - something you know already, it's like git.
The new-but-not-useful part is that it has a decentralized consensus algorithm. Technically, it's impressive, but it is also very complex, which means for whatever thing "you can do with the blockchain", there is a simpler - therefore better - technical way to do it. Therefore, in most cases the blockchain is "needed" not technically but for ideological tech-bro libertarian reasons.
Likewise, Bitcoin is new and that is mistaken with being useful.
You have story-telling from the tech-bro who have invested early in Bitcoin and got rich. That's the ultimate proof it must be good right? Nope. It was a good investment precisely because it's a bad currency. A good currency needs stability. The value of your savings never lose 20% just because Elon Musk said mean things about the euro or the dollar.
There are lots of people who wants to get rich by doing shady and/or illegal things.
Bitcoin's killer feature is that police is police, and the banks and the democratic institutions are relatively powerless to go after those guys.
Two weeks ago, my wallet was stolen in Paris, and the thieves took 5,500 euros from my bank account.
When something like this happens - and it happens all the time - with bitcoin, that's the end of the story. Too bad for you, you lost your money, you are on your own.
But there I had a centralized institution called "the police" where I said my money was stolen. And just like that, a centralized institution called "my bank" gave me money back. Because a centralized institution called "the government" forces it legally to do so.
Don't buy the libertarian ideology that centralized institutions must be thrown away with the bath water.
I only scratched the surface, didn't evoke the gigantic waste that Bitcoin's
proof-of-work causes, but if you want to know more, I promise you will find those articles interesting:24