Blockchain is a new type of database that has larger applications that involve the tradeoff between efficiency and trust
To answer your bigger question you have to ask yourself what you define as "progress" - is Bitcoin/blockchain new? Yes. Is either useful? Sure, for people who are looking to move money around semi anonymously, enforce more expensive supply chain tracking solutions, or make money selling new financial products. Is that progress?
If you, like me, don't see new database/financial engineering that benefits a small group of technologists and financiers as potentially equal in value to the raise in standard of living across huge sections of the world brought by electrification, refrigeration, antibiotics, internal combustion engines, public roads, and white goods, then you may be interested in this thesis: https://www.nber.org/papers/w19895
"While no forecast of a future slowdown of innovation is needed, skepticism is offered here, particularly about the techno-optimists who currently believe that we are at a point of inflection leading to faster technological change. The paper offers several historical examples showing that the future of technology can be forecast 50 or even 100 years in advance and assesses widely discussed innovations anticipated to occur over the next few decades, including medical research, small robots, 3-D printing, big data, driverless vehicles, and oil-gas fracking."