As the number of cyptocurrencies escalates, there will need to be a shakeout at some point, but the number of exchanges and their flexibility and ease of use for enabling conversions of currencies is keeping pace. Market forces will generate a balance. Latency periods between entering and implementing transactions and transaction costs themselves were posed as a real bottleneck that would prevent widespread adoption of the blockchain. When we would talk with investors about applications involving micro transactions - such as trading data by the relevant data point - they would balk at the scalability issues. They would also push back that the tiny fees and payments made multiple microtransactions cost prohibitive - think selective data points from an IOT device you own.
Our vision dating back to 2006 of real time data transfer for a fee per data item seemed unattainable. However, the blockchain, microtransactions, and now the release by Brainbot Technologies of their Raiden Network can increase Ethereum transactions from about 20 transactions per second to perhaps over 100,000 transactions per second. When you combine this with sharding, the transactional speed and capacity to implement a blockchain Dapp will increase exponentially. In effect, the Brainbot approach structures hubs on top of Ethereum to shorten the distance between nodes. This additional layering also has potential positive impact on privacy, though there may be trad-offs.
This innovation can also reduce the amount of gas required to implement transactions. The constraints of these new approaches for reducing the amount of gas per transaction will determine the bundling algorithms that will shape the next generations of solutions for enabling a data trading economy of microtransactions.
We're not far off. Its a good time to be a blockchain enthusiast!