in 2009. without a market price. without a economic value. people still thought bitcoin was worthy(feature and benefits).
they were willing to use their time and electric to use bitcoin.
people were developing it and transacting between each other.
the economic value increased the more people seen the features and benefits. even before there was an economic value.
by the way you are not forced to buy 1btc at $40k
you can if you wanted acquire 0.001 btc $40
no one is forcing you to hand over $40k in a lump
unlike shares where you can only buy whole shares. or stocks only in certain size allocations.
you can still use bitcoin even without paying $40k lump
with bitcoin you are not forced into a system which treats its users badly by devaluing it.
(fiat does force people to use fiat, where the value does devalue)
a ponzi scheme is just a scam where a central party takes money in, makes promises of small interest payments and tries to avoid people escaping.
a ponzi scheme pretends to offer you interest but reality is you lose value.. fiat is a legally accepted ponzi.
bitcoin is the opposite. its not a ponzi. it hedges against the fiat game
there is no central money stash. no manager.
bitcoin does not offer interest payments. it does not force people to stay in, it does not restrict value movement out.
you are not forced to only move out of bitcoin via a central party
people use bitcoin because it has many features fiat does not offer.
your whole premiss is the false assumption where you think something cannot have values(utility) unless it has value(price)
where in your mind. if government did not force that $7.50 was the minimum value for 1 hours labour(min wage laws) then no one would use dollar
yet bitcoin had values(utility) before it had value(price) and also that value(price) increases with many factors that different people find as their reasons to use and value bitcoin, without force or limitation
Take all the people that are currently holding bitcoin and spend the electricity to mine it and assume that from now on no person enters the system by investing funds. What all those holders and miners can do with all the beautiful features of bitcoin, with their payment protocols, network, etc. Well, they can send each other numbers. That's all. And off of numbers non of them can live. Every group of people can create such a system for sending numbers. It's nothing more but a primitive email-like system. So, the so-called "bitcoin value" is nothing but funds that are brought it by new investors. The funds these investors put into the pockets of existing bitcoin holders is what is called "bitcoin value". And this is nonsense of a highe order. Value in some financial system is the capital or debt inside that system that the investors are becoming the owners of. From this capital or debt the investors can profit without new investor entering the system. In bitcoin system you hold numbers and own nothing. So, like I've already said, bitcoin is nothing but a ponzi-like scheme for funds redistribution. Given holders own neither capital nor debt, bitcoin is neither currency nor asset. It's neither money nor commodity. It's just a faith based scheme for sending numbers and redistributing what is already there.