Perhaps your idea of "near term" is different to most.

I don't really want to poke at you as I find a lot of things you discuss highly informative. But I really can't stand half truths, lies or misleading statements when people's money is at stake. I don't really think that's your intent.

Some advice from someone who's a bit older than you and has "wasted" more than just 3 years "thinking" about a problem as opposed to actually doing. Start doing something. Doesn't matter if you know part of it won't work. Doing something often clarifies and focuses the thought process enabling one to make that final break through. When you spend a ton of time just thinking about a particular problem, you inevitably lock yourself into that cycle and it's very hard to break out of it as it's so "comfortable". I suspect you have the ability to eventually work out the problems you're struggling with and I look forward to that. However, I'd also suggest you start thinking outside the box as opposed to confining yourself to what currently exists. Off the top of my head, perhaps there's something in nature, biology etc that might trigger a thought that could be adapted mathematically i.e. something that completely changes some aspect(s) of the current idea set (like the blockchain itself perhaps) that would then allow other problems to be dealt with in completely different ways. Good luck to you.