Noob/crypto-skeptic coming in peace with questions

I am really interested in Ethereum but I am having a hard time understanding Ether the currency’s fundamental value. There is a whole lot of info out there and I’ve spent some time reading Ben Yu’s Medium articles and listening to a few episodes of Bankless. But a lot of the arguments I see for why to invest in crypto are along the lines of:

• crypto is just in its early days and soon everyone else will be getting into crypto too and the sooner you get on board the richer you’ll be
• this is the Renaissance and in the Renaissance you should move to Florence and partake in innovation and wealth creation not continue to live in Medieval times
• the logic in the @Peruggia thread about buying a famous NFT which is basically just that more people will have crypto and want NFTs in the future

This could all be right. The world is getting more digital and I’m inclined to believe the trend will continue, but these are not explanations for why crypto will grow, they’re just statements that it will and self-fulfilling arguments that you should join in.

My understanding of why Gold or the USD are valuable and good financial instruments is that they are 1) scarce (ETH ticks this box and I understand will even more so with ETH 2.0) and they are 2) useful, desirable on a fundamental level - gold, because it’s shiny and desired for jewellery/other industrial uses, USD because it has been relatively stable for a long time and has the backing of a historically reliable institution. The Fed is obviously fallible but if a bank loses all your money you are at least somewhat protected by things like FDIC.

I totally agree that there are problems with both Gold and USD. Gold is a bad currency because transaction costs are high and USD is unpredictable because it’s subject to the whims of the Fed, inflation, etc.

I also understand that Ether has an advantage over BTC because of the Ethereum environment supporting DApps, DeFi, NFTs. What I don't understand is the where Ether and BTC get their fundamental value. If Ether's fundamental value comes from what it can be used for in the Ethereum world, and BTC does not have an equivalent environment, what is BTC's fundamental value? 0? Is the idea that when a recession comes people will hold onto their Ether because of its usefulness in things like DApps? I can imagine a lot of people panicking and selling if there isn't a good story about why Ether itself is fundamentally valuable.

I love the ideas of decentralization and democratization that I hear on these pages and I really want to believe in the future value of a currency like Ether but I just don't understand it so I'm trying to check myself before I splash an irresponsible amount of money into it. Any help would be really appreciated. Cheers