"Reducing the friction of financial transactions definitely creates value."

Crypto-currencies are entirely unecessary for this.

I pay most of my bills 'digitally' with 0% transaction charge.

'Friction' is ultimately derived from 'regulation' - which is a necessary condition when dealing with real money across an economy.

One could argue there is 'too much regulation' - that said, without it, the economy would crash instantly due to mass fraud, corruption, embezzlement, tax avoidance etc. etc..

Irony: the moment 'Bitcoin' is important enough to be considered a 'real currency' by governments - 'poof' it's under regulation and loses a great deal of it's value in this area.

The 'solution' to e-currency is not Bitcoin, it has too many downsides for practical purposes. It's a great intellectual exercise, and something good may come of it, but 'it' is not the solution.

Even if we ignore all the uses that you don't personally find useful (free international transfers, domestic transfers that clear in an hour rather than days), you've retreated from "crypto currencies don't create value" to "crypto currencies create value to regulation evaders, but the net impact for society is negative", which is just completely different claim.