Speculating the prices has its pros and cons but I see it as good thing until the crypto market reaches some kind of adoption in the whole world economy because we are not yet up to the level to take into consideration.Currently the speculation is bringing the more people into the market if people don't really care about the prices we may not see such a huge bump in real short time.
The long pump is not because of the speculators joining in the pump, it occurs because of the shorts being liquidated by the margin trading exchanges and when this happens it creates more buying pressure in the market and hence the price goes up. Only people are calling longs now on every price point which is escalating the price movements now and once these calls will be put on halt that's when we will see the selling pressure and ultimately there will be a big fall in price of bitcoin.
the hidden hand theory, I don't think so, most of these pumps up and down are random, no matter how they can affect the market, it can't be always the reason at least not the only reason.
the crypto world is much harder to control than world finance which also a lot of people think it is being controlled by a small group. the crypto market can't be the same, it has very different rules to play in.