Is a hot dog a sandwich? The answer depends entirely on definition. What properties of bitcoin are essential to a blockchan vs which properties are simply how

Is a hot dog a sandwich? The answer depends entirely on definition. What properties of bitcoin are essential to a blockchan vs which properties are simply how bitcoin happens to use a blockchain? If blockchain just means the Merkle tree, then yes. If it means Merkle tree + a computational consensus system for adding nodes, then no.