It has a minimal value but it’s far less than its monetary premium. If you are investing in gold (as many mainstream wealth managers and central banks do) then you aren’t assessing “what is the minimum my investment can fall to based on fundamental industrial utility?” The investment thesis for gold completely ignores any potential for demonetization or else the investment is suicidal.

That's fair. But then your investment thesis is based on the value given to gold by large institutions that can/will create a price floor. Which yes, is absolutely based on trust-in-future-value, but in the case of gold that trust is widespread and tied to large, centralized financial institutions and thus regulations and eventually fiat (because in the end you will have to convert to fiat).

I can see that getting replicated for BC, but other crypto, not so much. A better, digital, asset than gold makes sense, but distributed, slow, state machines? Still don't get those...

Despite my username I am not a maximalist on any technology. Ethereum is very interesting and there are a number of scaling solutions (referred to as “layer 2s” or L2s) that have the same guarantees as the main chain but are far cheaper and faster (see Optimism and Arbitrum).

In Bitcoin the lightning network is slowly but steadily making progress amongst the faithful. It is also a faster and cheaper network.

Monero is the currency I recommend heavily because it is privacy-by-default - anyone who uses Monero is not broadcasting their intentions. This is an extremely valuable aspect of financial freedom and it gives me long term faith in its utility.

The key thing to remember is that all value is subjective. Someone will pay infinite money for a glass of water when they are dying of thirst and no money when they are drowning.

If a large portion of society values digital assets, then they have value. There is really nothing more complex than this for anyone to understand.