I agree in general. Crypto winter is here and appears to be getting worse. But I also am a frequent listener of Darknet Diaries podcast and basically every shady exchange of money online is facilitated in crypto. So it has a non-zero value.
1. Mine a bunch of new hashes.
2. Fake liquidity by selling to yourself - bonus points if you make it appear that the price is rising by selling/buying for more $.
3. When naive folks shout "it's raising to the moon!" and buy the crap - drop all what you have from the step one.
4. Profit - Lambo is yours!
But for whom? What how much is that utility really worth? And what kind of utility? That is what keeps shifting and what all the pro-contra propaganda is about.
In fact the bitcoin could even have negative utility, where getting someone stuck holding bitcoin is good for someone else.
Imagine that ... not just that bitcoin goes to zero, but could go into negative even!