I believe everything is built around speculation.  There is no development if there is no speculation; every new idea and invention, systems are built with speculation.  I do not think that Bitcoin has sold its soul to speculation, but rather it has been part of its soul.

This is also the reason there are lots of people coming from different walks of life who come to Bitcoin. They wanted to explore this speculation, verify it, and possibly gain a reward/benefit by taking advantage of this feature.  This is not limited to the market price of Bitcoin but also to the technology, philosophy, and application of Bitcoin.

Just like what @buwaytress stated, if one day the speculation within Bitcoin is proven to be unrealistic, then Bitcoin will eventually be forgotten.