It's always the most juvenile, unappealing shit.
Even with NFTs, It's like they try to make the most grotesque looking shit.
It makes me think that they wanted this shit to fail and it was just some tax evasion or dark money dumping thing.
They clearly wanted this shit to be the least marketable as possible.
While there are true believers, for sure, I would question what they believe.
They truly believe they will get rich, sure. Maybe they truly believe in the mass financialization of all human communication, maybe they truly believe in autonomous corporations, or in decentralized money. I don't personally believe anyone thought the apes were good or desirable though. I think people believed that they would get suckers into their ecosystems though, and that they could use those people to further their actual goals.