The value rises because it is a superior store of value and has international transaction ability. Chinese investors highly value its international transaction ability since they can't freely exchange USD with CNY.
It rises because it is a store of value (it is not superior, if I looked out for a safe store of value I would definitely not choose bitcoin)
and because it's transaction abilities, right. And these transaction abilities are for example, cheap and fast transactions with a simple system without intermediaries.
Everything else could be also done with computer game money (e.g.), which are not a working currency.
That's exactly my point, as long as the current system gets adapted to more and cheap transactions, everybody can use bitcoin for what they want it to use. You can use it as a good value storage, you can use it to buy your breakfast and you can use it to send money to your parents in Australia, etc. etc.
But if you start to castrate bitcoin more and more, it will lose all these abilities, in long term also the value storage function.