to the extent that executing transactions on a fully decentralized, trustless database or distributed computer is something people demand, and transaction fees

to the extent that executing transactions on a fully decentralized, trustless database or distributed computer is something people demand, and transaction fees must be paid in Bitcoin or Ethereum or Solana or whatever, cryptocurrencies do have some amount of actual use value, so are sort of like "commodities". I believe this is a correct argument in theory. In practice, at the moment, everything is exclusively driven by speculation, and if you took the degenerate gambling out of the system, I don't know what would be left. It's just gambling at all levels. There are legitimately "useful" services on blockchains, but the useful services they provide are mainly facilitating more gambling on stupid garbage coins. And even such useful "picks and shovels" services often still choose to make their own token for people to speculate on, because crypto people aren't interested in anything else. And then the L1 cryptocurrencies also have their prices driven by speculation. there is a core of actual technical innovation, which is almost totally irrelevant to the phenomenon of "crypto" today. But there may be a future world where cryptocurrencies provide real value. In that world where all the true believers have their wildest dreams come true, the price of a cryptocurrency would be much higher than zero, but even then, it might be much lower than they are right now.