Financial speculation is not the core or main purpose of cryptocoins. In fact, a very plausible explanation for BTC fiat price downward shift is that as the use of BTC for ordinary shopping keeps increasing, most merchants exchange what BTC they get from selling products immediately to fiats. Some day, again, more and more salaries get paid in BTC instead of fiat, people will hodl and something else happens.

On the other hand, as second generation ecosystems (and also "traditional" altcoins) keep on emerging and evolving and people get more and more interested in what they have to offer, their combined value rises.

And it is not kosher e.g. to count e.g. counterparty as "alternate", because it's part of BTC block chain and the BTC that were invested in XCP were "burned", sent to genesis.