> Are you proposing that "value" is meaningful in the absence of some perceiver
Yes.
Gold conducts electricity.
Bitcoin has no physically useful properties. However, I will admit a public ledger is actually probably very good for the USA so we can see all the grifting easily.
It's just that none of the blockchains have yet managed to situate themselves such that people are likely to value their effects. Instead they're focusing on scarcity, which is kind of silly because all of the competition is equally empowered to create artificial scarcities. I think they'll figure it out eventually.