... it absolutely does not make sense for government officials to advocate using taxpayer dollars to juice a speculative asset...
Seen that way you make a solid point. Just never have thought of BTC as speculative. It has continuously increased in value since receiving my first coins at about the $36/BTC range. They have never fallen below $36 in all those years.
Sure, but it's still speculative... the price is determined by demand.
With a company, if it goes bankrupt, at the very least you could sell off the assets to try and pay back investors. If the price of Bitcoin dropped dramatically, there's no way for investors to try and recover their investment. Personally I think it's unlikely, but there's technically nothing stopping the price of Bitcoin soaring or crashing, it's all up to the demand.