I spent a couple years in the DC blockchain scene. If my experience is anything to go by, the answer has a lot to do with how much of the technical expertise in this space is concentrated behind a screen consisting of a relative handful of self-declared consultants. These characters (many with Deloitte on their biz cards) prowl the power hangouts of DC to talk up how great crypto is, while handing out free samples to every midlevel policy wonk they can get beer time with. This has been going on for years and I see Libra as the first major attempt to capitalize on this ground game.
These wonks then make all the right favorable noises when queried by the FBs and VISAs of the world about the posture of the agencies, organizations, departments and NGOs they work for regarding crypto. As there's little to no in-group tolerance for critical introspection, there's correspondingly little to no collective power of seeing how this all looks from the outside.
It's a tight mutual feedback loop, twisted into hysteresis because everyone except the general public stands to gain from telling each other that the regulatory coast is clear.
These wonks then make all the right favorable noises when queried by the FBs and VISAs of the world about the posture of the agencies, organizations, departments and NGOs they work for regarding crypto. As there's little to no in-group tolerance for critical introspection, there's correspondingly little to no collective power of seeing how this all looks from the outside.
It's a tight mutual feedback loop, twisted into hysteresis because everyone except the general public stands to gain from telling each other that the regulatory coast is clear.