Currently a few countries recognize it officially, and it is used all around the world for transactions everyday. That gives it a lot of utility. It doesn't have to be tied to gold.

Biggest thing was they made people think what they were holding(FTX coins/stock) was valuable. That it would later be worth a large amount of money and according to SBF people were "sitting on a goldmine of opportunity" LOL.

But it wasn't tied to anything like other major coins. No country had backed this with their own fiat currency,(I know the Bahamas but lol not a top 25 currency) at least Bitcoin got backed by El Salvador. It was pretty obvious to see FTX would fail from an expert's viewpoint. The real question is how they managed to convince major sports promotions and celebs to all peddle their bs..that's the impressive part.