[imtringued]

>Parenthesis: by the way, non-mining full nodes add precisely ZERO value to the network, and they actually slow it down. Before you guys start yelling, please see reference at the end of my comment for details. That's another urban legend purported by Bitcoin Core. Anyways, don't get me started.

I would have thought the point of bitcoin is to be a currency and not just a way to fund wasting electricity.

Miners add zero value by design. Mining only exchanges physical resources like energy into equivalent bitcoin. If people are willing to buy bitcoin for $7000 then that means miners are willing to spend up to $7000 worth of energy to obtain a single bitcoin. It's the buyers and sellers of bitcoin that have added the value.