And I agree. If they are committing fraud, jail them. That's not hard. But to call it all blatant fraud like UW seemed to be doing seems wrong to me.
To me personally, the utility is that of digital gold. I don't think it will ever be an actual currency apart from perhaps some large, one-off transactions. I think there is real value in an asset that's outside of being controlled by a single government. I'm not some wild libertarian or anything. Nearly all my wealth is in USD. But I see the value in having a little stashed outside of that in a rainy day fund. If it were easy enough to buy Euros or Swiss Francs, I'd do that too. It's also why I own a little gold.
I'm not sure where you're going with this? I don't want the U.S. on a gold standard. It would be a disaster. Countries need the ability to print, change interest rates, etc.
But that doesn't mean I don't want access to an alternative, just in case. (To be honest, if it's sudden that things go downhill, the value of BTC is going to fall too.)
Bottom line: I think BTC has utility. I like owning a little. I see it mostly like a call option. If it goes to $0, no big deal. If it goes to $1 million, I'll have a nice little stake.