That's the biggest problem with crypto right now. The sharks could smell an opportunity, so you had hedge funds and billionaires like Elon Musk with the power to come in and move markets. The biggest issue with cryptocurrency (even the big one Bitcoin) is the market caps are still quite small. When you have such a tiny market cap, it's far too easy for a whale to come in and excite or scare the market.
Did the crypto community actively seek out "big money"? I don't think so. It's just an opportunity that presented itself and that's how things happened. Although, you could argue that blockchain-based startups and projects taking investment from VCs and funds could also be seen as taking big money.
Would Bitcoin be worth as much had large funds and investors not bought in? Who knows. I do know that if traditional investors hadn't bought in, we might have seen Bitcoin hedging itself against inflation a lot better than it currently is.