Yes it can. Why can't it? It's something people want because it's value increases, and there's a limited number of it. People don't know what value to assign to it, so its price violently fluctuates.

I have no idea where this thinking comes from that it's novel other than people are sold on the hype of the concept without thinking about the concept from a different angle.

If we did "Bitcoin by hand" and threw out increasingly large numbers, and whoever could figure out its factors would be awarded a ticket, and lets say there's only 100 million tickets, what would be the difference?

That it can't be counterfeited? That the central bank can't print more tickets? That's it? Wow, OK. You know, the counterfeiting issue isn't one that modern economies face in significant portion anymore. And if you wanted to prevent the printing of money, you could just ask your local representative to advocate for the US to go back to the gold standard.

Except it doesn't work anymore. So why would it work in software?

So is it a jack of all trades and master of none sort of thing? I still see it as a speculation tool and it's grabbing a lot of momentum. But I don't see what's so fundamentally useful about the technology unless you're interested in laundering money and/or buying illegal stuff.

Bitcoin is a currency.

The fundamentally useful thing about Bitcoin is it's proof-of-work shared ledger that allows transactions to be conducted and verified between individuals (through the shared network) independent of any third party or broker.

It is the electronic equivalent of handing someone a physical coin.

It is genuinely pretty neat.

Any actual meaningful application of this use has yet to be realized.

> It is genuinely pretty neat.

This captures my feelings exactly about BTC, thank you for phrasing it so succinctly!