I had almost the same thought like you, OP, when I was observing the evolution of the futures prices.

There are some indications that a stabilizing effect of the futures could be true:

1) The prices of the futures for January, February and March are almost at the same level.
2) I mean to have observed that future prices and real Bitcoin prices already have effect on each other.  The future price. as it keeps constantly above the Bitcoin price, puts a ceiling (it doesn't go above the future price), but also a floor to the BTC price (it never seems to fall more than ~$1500 below it.). When the future drops a bit, the BTC price follows, but never reaching the floor.
3) BTC volatility has drastically reduced when compared to the days before the future trading started.

However, we are in a very early stage of futures trading. That could be a temporary effect, and maybe a crash or hype occurs again.

I would be very happy with stable prices, as I'm not primarily a hodler but an user. But yes, I think it's correct to worry about the investors that get in to get rich quick and could get out when they don't get the return they expected (or if they panic).

In my opinion, Bitcoin will sucessfully stabilize its price if the scalability problem is solved and it can be used again as a currency - "currency use" gives it a connection to real values and assets. The current Lightning network advances will possibly enabling Bitcoin's use as a currency in the medium term again.

However, for me, LN and on-chain scaling are not enough to enable Bitcoin to be a truly global solution. A "sharding" solution like pegged sidechains, child-chains or extension blocks would be the piece of the puzzle that is still missing.