Are there any instruments like options or futures for btc? Seems like these could be used to solve this issue.
The larger western exchanges offer leverage (and its other peoples funds earning interest, currently ~0.015%/day).
There is also mining contracts which are a form of derivative.
Also -- none of these deriv's provide any solution to volatility (possibly make it worse?)
The question of "who's buying, how many of them are there, how long do they intend to hold for, and how are they buying?" you can't answer for sure, but when the capital to buy starts getting more scarce and people start leveraging other assets to continue buying...you'll get to a point where market velocity surpasses speculative velocity and the leveraging ability of the buyer.
In the physical world, this is a vendor of widgets on the street and a buying frenzy. Buyers spend money on the widgets and turn around and open up their own widget shop as sellers to feed the craze. Eventually enough buyers are converted into sellers, not enough buyers remain and the price crashes.
Futures contracts are a form of credit in this model. Bitcoin's crashed 4 times in 6 years - don't think it won't happen again.
It requires buy in from many parties - suppliers of materials to manufacturers, manufacturers of products, merchants reselling products, etc.
The entire chain can be stabilized with futures so then bitcoin doesn't need to be converted immediately to another currency.