So they joined hands with some developers that were around back in those days and gave them the money to develop their projects, eventually some of them became successful and they made a lot of money, which is what eventually fueled icos, NFTs, meme coins and all the many different bubbles we saw since.
Are you trying to say some bitcoin Investors are shareholders and invested their funds to pump the speculations and brings forth value to the AltCoins of today? I wouldn't being doubt if you say yes because since bitcoinehas been the first existing Crypto currencies in existence just as your earlier said, it was in doubt by some individuals that the development might not be a trusted one but only those investors who know about the reality potentials of bitcoin technology would have the strong mindsets to ignore what people may say about the development when a new AltCoin is introduced and only then the bitcoin Investors could have guts to Invest their funds to those newly introduced AltCoins with an analogical logarithms paving a way determine the potentials of the coins.