Money is nothing more than an abstracted store of value. At the base of all money is the exchange of goods and services, without which there can be no money.

The money value of crypto-currency is related to the information tied to the blockchain infrastructure on which the given currency exists. Without the information, the currency itself has a certain low level intrinsic value mostly consisting of the energy required to create the hash chain... similar to the paper pages in a book.

Steem coin increases in value as a function of the quality of information contained on Steemit which then drives platform engagement... which then drives higher quality information to be added to the blockchain system.