From what I can tell and have seen, crypto is backed by… hype and speculation.

bitcoin is a network protocol. cryptographic tokens are issued within it. what backs it is the security of the cryptographic system and the combined hashing power of the network. if you think it doesn’t have value, that’s ok: value is subjective. some people do think it’s valuable to be able to control these cryptographic tokens. and that’s ok, too: value is subjective.