Did I get any of the facts wrong? Is my reasoning flawed?
I don't see any facts that are wrong. In fact if he really wants to argue the idea that there is supposedly nothing backing bitcoins, you can pull the Ace and say that the original value of a bitcoin was equal to the electricity (electrons, copper wire degraded, silicon & chipsets depreciation) that went into the creation of it. On top of that, because of those qualities and the fact that they were packaged into a nice little electronic token gave a slight buffer not to the intrinsic value but to the perceived value which, again, can be traced back to what the perceived value of other commodity currencies were at their own times.
I think you're spot on.
The cost to make something does not give it value.
My idea of bitcoin and the regression theorem is that maybe it applies maybe it's too much of a stretch, but it doesn't matter. Like the vaccine/evolution comment implies, just because there is a known route to something doesn't mean everything needs to take that route in order to work.