This is something that most Bitcoiners don't realize - crypto is more enmeshed into the traditional political world, partly because of the shitcoinery we decry. Crypto hosts a lot of random parties with open bar on some cruise boat at random tech conference 1. The consequence is that when politicians talk about Bitcoin, I don't think a single one says "Bitcoin" outright, but rather crypto. Crypto people are waking up to the fact that their cash treasuries are best leveraged for political influence as it's one of the highest ROI things you can do - make a (surprisingly) small amount of money in order to get respect from the policymakers who appoint your cops. If you can't build products or anything else with the money, your best bang for buck is to try to get yourself protected - FTX was a flagrant example of this.

a16z which comes from Trad VC background and the YC community surrounding Coinbase gave them an early look at this.

There are Bitcoin greenshoots here - but Bitcoiners should be cautious and understand what the "crypto" people are doing, because how Bitcoin is presented will be affected by this, and unless all of us decamp to Mars together, currently, this perception will matter.