How is Bitcoin not just a glorified ponzi scheme?

Genuinely asking, not here to troll. Bitcoin has been popular for 15 years, but it still doesn’t seem to have a mainstream, everyday use. You can’t just walk into most stores and buy groceries or gas with it. Yet, every time it surges, people start calling it "the future of finance," but that future never really happens.

I keep hearing about institutional money coming in, but if it’s mostly hedge funds and whales pushing the price up, how does that make it a real currency? If regular people are just there to provide liquidity for the big dogs, how is this different from a glorified pump-and-dump?

Don't get me wrong I'm a Bitcoin fan and have been buying and selling it for years now. But I cringe everytime I hear “It’s digital gold”.. Gold has a use beyond its speculative value. It can be made into jewelry, art.. People want to have it because its a ‘real’ thing you can hold in your hands! Bitcoin's only real use is making anonymous transactions that regular humans don't usually need to make.

Am I missing something here, or is Bitcoin actually just a bigger fool scheme?

Edit: When you ask the trading AI everyone on tiktok uses (this one) It basically says Bitcoin isn’t a Ponzi because there’s no central scammer, no guaranteed payouts, and it still functions even when prices crash. It’s more like a scarce digital asset that people trade, kind of like gold but way more volatile. But that still doesn’t really answer why it hasn’t become a real mainstream currency. Feels like people just trade it hoping someone else will pay more later.