It is rather a store of value, with the legacy Bitcoin name, and limited supply. The reason gold has been valuable through the entirety of human history was just because it looked shiny and cool, and not because of its utility.
You never use gold to buy milk or make any general transactions, so it must be worthless right? Gold is one of the most manipulated commodities on the market, and the government pretty much controls the supply (which we don't know), so it must be worthless, right?
Gold is used in a lot of products and processes, from jewelry to audio gear to space technology to nano particles for chemotherapy. Bitcoin on the other hand is nothing, it's just an idea.
Your other statements are misleading - who cares about Israel when the USA SEC approved CME futures?
China, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nepal, Morocco, Bangladesh and now Israel, the list of countries that are cracking down on bitcoin keeps growing rapidly. Do you think governments will just sit back and let some virtual currency replace the currency they control ? The EU is coming with legislation in a few months too.
Who seriously cares about these recent forks?
That's what people said about BCH too. BTC has become unusable as a payment system and some virtual coin WILL replace it some day. I expect that this day isn't too far away.
And of course, the tulip bulb mania is worlds apart from Bitcoin. The supply of tulips is not only infinite (uncapped), but anyone can just plant some, for starters. That alone knocks out the comparison.
Bitcoin itself is capped but anyone can start a coin that's limited nowadays. Just because it's limited doesn't make it valuable. In the end people will want to use it as a payment system, if that's not possible, the coin will die and will be replaced by a better one. Just like we're seeing right now.