'Markets' meaning exchanges?  That number sounds extremely high to me.  And boy, that's a lot of different coins and/or tokens.  I don't know about liquidity, but I'd be willing to bet that most of those are dead coins that don't have *any* liquidity or miners or any way to sell them.

One day I would imagine that the number of exchanges will drop dramatically, because there's really no need for all of them.  I have always thought that a big one like Binance might start buying little ones out, which is usually what happens in the corporate world when there's too much competition.  And I also think smaller exchanges just won't stay in business long if there are really over 20,000 of them.  That's too many.

It isn't *just* that.  How many exchanges can possibly make a profit when only a small fraction of the world population even owns any crypto?  It's supply and demand, and as regards exchanges there is too much supply and not nearly enough demand to keep them all in business.