Agreed. Basically the bullish case for bitcoin is that it's a financial asset that institutional investors want to hold just because it has some sort of beta v

Agreed. Basically the bullish case for bitcoin is that it's a financial asset that institutional investors want to hold just because it has some sort of beta value that makes it useful as an investment hedge. The argument for it as an alternative currency seems out the window. The stakeholders don't care though because the price keeps going up, which is all they really care about.