It does not have value. Nobody is denominating services or goods in BTC. They denominate them in USD and BTC is simply a convenient way to spend USD, maybe even make some profit for the short time you're holding it. That's the value of BTC. Hard-to-trace, global (and local), decent-rate, unregulated money transmission. Decentralized and cheaper Western Union.
Makes you wonder if Satoshi isn't simply the NSA.
The more I think about this the more predictable this outcome becomes. BTC is making techies everywhere invest in what effectively amounts to USD.
Yeah, something's weird. BTC went up, not down, when Silk Road was busted. BTC went up, not down, when Congress started holding hearings on the subject.
Just for fun, plot BTC news relevancy from Google against the BTC value.
The two line up basically perfectly. Conclusion? BTC in the news means some portion of people hear about the great new BTC and how much it's going up in value, and some of them buy in.
"Hard-to-trace" -- hardly: this is the easiest money to trace in the history of money! (Well, ACH transactions are easier if you are backed by an army.)