Current utility of cryptocurrency is a tricky one and if you judge bitcoin by what you can do with it, it's nonsense.

That's mostly true for privately held gold, too. Gold has some utility, and it's possible some privately held gold eventually makes its way into industrial processes or jewelry, but mostly it's just exchanged between individuals who agree the market price (defined by fiat) is the fair price and exchange the item and fiat.

That's a side of crypto I haven't been able to process. It seems the only thing that matters is its value in fiat. Is that a bad thing? I don't think it is. If the dollar were to be weaker compared to the euro, it has little effect on the bitcoin value as it's priced in all currencies (or at least all major currencies).

To me, that's the utility of crypto (which Swype wanted to make froyo). It's a currency that's balanced with all currencies. But how does one value such a thing? Gold can be valued by the cost of mining it. There doesn't seem to be a similar function with crypto.