The Bitcoin protocol, issuance, or blockchain has never been manipulated, altered, or successfully attacked. There is some price manipulation as it is a free market and if a whale buys or sells a substantial amount of assets, it can temporarily affect the price. But this is very different from the market manipulation you see in wall street, gold, or other opaque markets.

You want to preserve your wealth and nothing offers better protection than a decentralized network like Bitcoin. Everything else has been hacked.

About the speculation, nothing wrong with an asset going up in value but it does so because it offers a compelling use case: being the only asset you can truly own permissionless. When the confiscators come for your money you will understand its value