It's not just the first, but the biggest so far. A more fair comparison would be the concepts of ebay, credit score, etc that benefit from massive network effects and then become the defacto standard.

People can get over the idea of wealth transfer to early adopters if they find some unique benefits that they can't get with other currencies. That said, you're right. It's still in the early nascent stages and could just as easily be another betamax.