[jondubois]

I was very sceptical when I first heard about Bitcoin but now I do believe that cryptocurrencies have some intrinsic value as a payment system.

The Bitcoin brand itself has intrinsic value which is related to its popularity. Consumers have always been willing to pay a premium to deal with specific brands which they know and trust.

When people buy Coca-Cola, they're not paying for brown sugar-water.

I do think that a lot of Bitcoin's current value is driven by the black market for money laundering but its distributed nature puts the government in a difficult position when it comes to regulation.

If the government tried to delegitimize Bitcoin and shut down all big miners and exchanges, it would just fragment the Bitcoin network further and shift its control into the hands of smaller, shadier players who would be much harder to regulate.

There has always been a market for virtual currencies but because they used to be centralized, the government was always able to step in and shut them down (e.g. Flooz, e-gold...) Cryptocurrencies might actually solve that problem.