From the beginning of the year, Bitcoin has consistently risen in value.

That's a rather sweeping generalization there! Yes, if you look at Bitcoin's general trend over the past 12 months, it has been generally upward, however there's been hours, days, and even weeks where the profits were negative. Robert Reid on Twitter pointed out there's been seven 30% dips in Bitcoin's price over the past year. Yes, long term it's shown to be a valuable asset, but glossing over the short term high volatility isn't accurate.

I do agree with you that the people who believe in Bitcoin are the ones who have purchased, hold and use Bitcoins. Bitcoin was created to have utility and it has usefulness to a wide range of users. I've see most prominently users from first-world countries interested in it for the convenience of a digital payment that is also more secure (trust-less) than existing services they as first-world users have access to (e.g. Paypal). But it also attracts third-world users who have either corrupt governments/banks, or insufficient/inaccessible financial infrastructure. For them Bitcoin is an onramp to financial self-sufficiency, without waiting for their government to step in and create a financial infrastructure.