At the end of the day, if people prefer to call me a "gambler" or "speculator" or "investor" for owning Bitcoin, any of those terms are fine.
However, the question of whether X should be termed an investment or speculation can be quite important in people's lives. Marketing in general is really important, especially marketing around which many people base serious financial decisions. If the label you put on the box leads people to expect one thing, and what's in the box is something else, that's problematic. This is part of why the SEC cares so much about who various securities are marketed to. And since, so far, the SEC has not stopped in to stop BTC et al from being marketed to The Average Jane, it's important to unofficially call out unrealistic claims and misleading terminology.
So even if it doesn't necessarily matter what people call you, it may be worth your time to understand where and why they set boundaries and conditions for activities in which you are involved. This could save you a lot of energy that might have otherwise been wasted in repeating hard lessons. Even if you are less "don't reinvent the wheel" and more "NIH" and just want to learn in isolation, you could also gain some helpful tips on defining your own boundaries.
I would rather ask the questions 'Is buying crypto assets speculative?' (It depends on your intent and ideology.) or 'Is buying crypto assets risky?' (Yes. If you need to ask, your risk model is probably not very quantified.)