that the recent jump in price is not due (primarily) to an increase in hoarding, speculation, or hype, but rather to a simple jump in users.
I fail to see the difference between a bitcoin user and a bitcoin speculator.
what are all these new users using bitcoin for?
There is no difference at all betwen an speculator and a user. Its just that some people like to judge the motivations of other people in the market. What they deem its good are labeled as users and what they deem is bad are labeled as speculators. And because everybody judges in a different way, you have all type of cracy clasifications. Its a useless distinction. Everybody is a user, just with different motivations.
All BTC investment for short term gain is "speculation" at this point. I don't look at this as a bad thing. It is what it is.
Digital currencies have always been used to support an ecosystem. Without this ecosystem the value is zero. The BTC ecosystem (game) right now is an online "Stock Market Game".
Until someone creates another use for BTC outside of the "Stock Market", it will be relegated to gambling chip.