‘Bitcoin can easily be replaced by another technology or cryptocurrency’

Bitcoin effectively has no competitors. Whilst Bitcoin the protocol is open source and is infinitely and trivially copyable, Bitcoin the network, on the other hand, is not easily copyable. As the first successful attempt at creating a peer-to-peer electronic cash system, Bitcoin carries a significant first-mover advantage and accumulated network effect. Over time, it has amassed the largest user base, the most liquid market, the largest ecosystem of merchants and financial service providers, and crucially, the highest available assurance of transaction settlement through Proof-of-Work accumulation on its blockchain. Unlike the open source code itself, these things are very hard to copy by competitors, a fact which is further highlighted by the inability for any competing protocol to surpass it after more than a decade in operation.