Bitcoin can't validate the Counterparty invariants, thus Counterparty can't have decentralized consensus. Sorry you can't put smart contracts on the Bitcoin block chain. Rootstock is making a side-chain instead.

But the larger issue is scaling. And also of course the fact that Turing-complete scripts can blow up. To solve this, you need me. I've been working on the technological issues for 2 - 3 years.