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1. Money [finance] is a technology just like Communication and transportation.
2. Now, If you think about it, computers and computer networks came around only recently whereas these 3 have been around for thousands of years.
3. Each of these domains will/are being re-imagined / reconstructed as if they came after the dawn of computers.
4. A car invented after computers will be a computer itself on the network while processing with a capablity to drive itself.
5. Communicating with any human being on the planet face to face will approach epic cheapness as these humans will have a computer in their pocket with a camera while being on a network that allows this.
6. Now, Extend this to money/finance, The currency and the network through which the currency flows have been separate entities for more than a millennia, i.e. Banks and the Fiat currency or USD on a Master Card/Visa network.
7. Evolution of the above would be a network that moves money/value while solving the double-spend problem and still not centralized i.e. Trust shifting from institutions/Govt to the Decentralized network that allows for this.
8. Bitcoin is the protocol/Network/Currency that is the culmination of this evolution of money.
If you want to dig more: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/36448501
This depends heavily on how you define "innovative". The vast majority of use cases people claim to be building blockchain/crypto solutions for would be better served by a basic database and some regulation changes to lower financial transaction fees. However, I would say the underlying technologies are innovative and can be impactful in the future if applied to right problems by people who aren't just speculators wanting to get rich quick.