- What is the value of cryptocurrency? ( not what coins are worth but what is the physical value of it or what gives it value ?)
Most in here will tell you the value is whatever the market is willing to pay. By that definition ponzi schemes have value too. In fact, most coins have more in common with ponzi schemes than anything else. I prefer a more classical approach towards defining value:
A product or service has value if it offers a significantly enough improvement compared to existing solutions, or if it offers a wanted product or service that did not exist before.Bitcoin offered that. It made it possible to do international transactions almost for free. The price gap between the existing transaction solutions and bitcoin fee is what gave bitcoin value. And also the speed compared to existing solutions. I'd say bitcoin was a significantly enough improvement.
Most coins offer small or no improvements to bitcoin, and therefore have no value by my definition. (You can still make a truckload of money on them, but it's a greater fool game) There are however also coins that offer significant improvements. Some are working on the scaling issues that we see in bitcoin. Solving that would be a significant improvement. Others, like BitBay or Etherum, are working on offering new and/or significantly improved services, mostly by using smart contracts one way or the other.
- What are the overall ethics of cryptocurrency? ( Good or Bad , is it a bunch of people just trying to make money with little respect to society and laws or is it genuine innovation with positive intent ?)
Pretty bad for the most part. Crypto is now dominated by people that are trying to get rich quick. But there are good people here too. They are just mostly busy trying to actually develop something, and don't have the time to post in here all day.
- Where/How will cryptocurrency fit into the structure of the world going forward ?
I believe it will be just as dominant and integrated in our lifes as the internet. But most of it will be back end, so people will not even know that services use crypto as part of their backbone.