B/bitcoin has excelled to this point (market cap) with nothing but resistance from the banks, media, liberal economists, and trolls. It also continues to absolutely dominate all of it's competition in altcoins by a long shot. If you search the keyword "bitcoin" for recent news.. you get lots of hits, search "ripple" and it's crickets chirping time. Bitcoin is king of crypto and I expect it will remain so. That doesn't mean there isn't some room for others for a little while.
"Back suggested that developers should keep in mind that competing systems will need to replicate bitcoin's network effect, something he said would be a challenge to any project seeking to replicate aspects of what bitcoin's technology can provide.
"Once something takes hold and gets going, it makes more sense to focus on and build around and on top of that, and we feel that sidechains are the best way to do that," he said. "
As far as the wall observing goes, I'm bullish as fuck with a long term focus.