I don't think coming out of the gate first means you win. Otherwise myspace would be ruling the world of social media and not facebook. Look at Digg vs. Reddit, Chrome vs. Netscape, IBM vs. the clones, and infinite other examples. While other cryptocurrencies do not yet have the market cap of bitcoin, it does not mean that they never will. By your argument gold is far superior to Bitcoin and always will be because it has a larger market cap (Bitcoin's market cap is a fraction of a percent of gold).

Gold has a proven track record of thousands of years as a store of wealth so I don't think there is any scam in recommending or believing in Gold (and other precious metals). Gold does not have the explosive growth potential that Bitcoin has (the main advantage of precious metals is that they protect you from inflation) but it is foolish to believe that Bitcoin is at this point a safe long term investment. And sure, anybody could have been rich if they invested in Bitcoin at the right time. That's true of anything. The trick is also getting out at the right time.

I think one day the cryptocurrency world will settle on a handful of meaningful options (or maybe more). But I don't think early success means a given cryptocurrency, even Bitcoin, will be successful forever. Personally, I think it will rise to a much higher price than it is at today but at the same time, I'm not convinced that it will not eventually fall back down. Maybe I'm wrong. I look forward to seeing what happens either way.