It's nice that you touch the subject of speculators, even as lightly as you did. But in my opinion, the presence of speculators is a true sign that the underlying instument is stable or promising enough to attract outside risk capital.

Sure, we already have people playing the wide spreads, but true liquidity and stability should come from strong trading interest. The caveat is, like you said, sudden volatility may happen, but if the currency is established (ie backed by strong userbase, investors and sound businesscases), the spikes will be small and short-lived.