It's a good question, it's nice to see someone thinking rationally about the economics of bitcoin and asking an intelligent question. I see bitcoin transactions as essentially neutral in terms of whether they create or destroy value. On the one hand, buying bitcoins to spend at a merchant creates upward pressure on the price. Once spent, however, the merchant is likely to instantly liquidate the bitcoin into USD, because bitcoin has a low utility for actual commerce. It does no good to hold a currency the vast majority of the economy doesn't accept and when the rest of the economy conducts business in USD. There's also substantial risk of losing the profit of the transaction due to bitcoin's intense volatility, so all the incentives for merchants are to exchange immediately into USD, and this puts an equal amount of downward pressure on the price. I see commerce playing a negligible role in the actual value of bitcoin, all this up and down is related primarily to speculators.