There's a strong team and a huge community behind Ethereum.
If they are persistent enough they have all the chances to switch to PoS, implement Ethereum Sharding and add many more features to fix eth's problems.

As for other projects that are similar to eth, I'm a big fan of EOS:
- 0 fees,
- instant transactions
- max registered tps 4k
- the possibility to reverse a transaction if your funds are stolen

Ripple is a cryptocurrency for banks and used primarily by banks. It's a good alternative for international money transfers as it is faster and requires smaller transaction fees.
(with WesternUnion it's ~10% if I'm not mistaken, with Ripple it's 1-2%).
But I would not consider it to be a good investment as the issuing company can place a huge number of coins into the market at once and thus drop the rate.

There's a good service for news monitoring:
http://cryptopanic.com

You can filter the news and see "hot" ones in order to know the most important things.

The stable coins are always issued by one single company which may go bankrupt or scam.
Moreover, in order to cover the fees and maintain the stable rate, they issue more coins than they get real money.
The situation gets just like with the FRS that simply prints banknotes.
Stable coins are fine to save your funds when the market goes abruptly down, but in the long-term perspective, I wouldn't rely on any of them.

Check onchainfx.com
Komodo: 1800+ github commits over the last 90 days.
0x: 1600+
Rchain: 1400+
How much hor NEO? 34, only 34 commits. The project is not being developed at all.

Let's take a look at another useful website blocktivity.info
NEO is also nowhere to be seen. How long has it been since the project's launch? No operations on this blockchain.

There may be some temporary market fluctuations that will move NEO's price up or down, but since the project is not being developed at all, it has no chances for mass implementation and thus mass growth on the long run.

Ethereum price grew that much in the first place because this project was the first one to offer something else apart from the means of payments. It's the platforms for developing dapps and smart contracts.
But as far too many projects rushed to use it for their needs, the system proved to be not so stable.

Many issues have been uncovered, such as
- impossibility to scale
- high transaction fees when the network is overloaded
- the risk to lose you money due to the bugs in the code

New projects with better indices are already available and most likely they will replace Ethereum in time.
So I doubt if its price will rise that much again.

I help blockchain projects with marketing and copywriting. I'm working on several projects and all of them are crypto-related.
So yes, crypto is my full time job. Although not in the way that the topic starter means it, I think.

For what purpose do you need such projects? For personal use / for cross promo or anything else?
I'm currently working on BestRate.org. This is a cryptocurrency exchange aggregator that helps you find the best rate to exchange cryptos.
Also, they offer a set of B2B payment tools to accept cryptos. Will it work?

The whole crypto market doesn't feel well these days, so it's not only about exchange platforms. All crypto projects lose users.
Still, if you have a viable product and a good offer you may still save your boat from drowning. Try the following:

1. Promote your platform on Quora, Reddit and all cryptocurrency-related forums in the relevant topics.
2. Find reputable services with crypto-oriented audience and contact them for cross-promotion.
3. Contact all the coins that are supported by your platforms and ask them to place the link to your platforms in the "exchanges" section.
4. If you already have some audience on social media, run a promo campaign. E.g. "No fees for 3 days for reposting our service on Facebook and Twitter". Duplicate this promo campaign via email marketing.
5. SEO is not dead either. A blog with many keyword-focused articles may attract more audience, but it will require lots of time and efforts. Wordpress+YoastSEO may facilitate the process.

Who occupied coinmarketcap top during the previous bullrun in 2013? Do you remeber any of these guys?
https://coinmarketcap.com/historical/20131110/
The same fate awaits the cureent leaders. Only the strongest projects will survive this crypto winter.

Ethereum is very stable. It is vary stable at going down these days.
To be honest, I wouldn't risk day-trading on a falling market. It's a dead case.

ICOs kill Ethereum. They simply sell off al the funds they've managed to raise and drop its price evenmore.

https://app.santiment.net/assets/erc20
Check the column 'ETH spent'. More than $200k have been sold off over the last 30 days already.

IT marketing.
I got acquainted with the crypto area more than a year ago and I'm still keen on this new technology.

Telegram is not blocked yet. Try growing your own telegram channel or a group.
Fill it with the unique content, invite all the members of your team and your contact list to get the first 100 followers.
Place the link to your channel on different forums, Quora, Reddit, etc.

After your cross 500 users mark, try paid advertising on other channels.

You can find more tips in my article:
medium.com/@kate.poisonglen/17-tips-to-launch-the-telegram-channel-for-a-crypto-project-f262cd041c81

No one wants to die without many other things.
I'd be sad to disappoint you, but the humankind is mostly focused on making money nowadays. Crypto has shown the world a way to make easy money.
There are still too many people who strive to make their living. The question you ask is not something that is a priority to them.

Do you provide KYC support as well?
Is it possible to pay with fiat through your service?

Launching your own product is a costly thing. I don't want to discourage you, but...

If you have a billion-dollar-idea, get used to the thought that first of all it is a minus-billion-dollar idea.
Specify your business plan. How much you are going to spend on
- developers
- marketing
- sales process
- support
All together your costs will be approximately equal to a billion of dollars.
And only after you spend that much on your project and if it proves to be successful, then and only then you still have a chance to make the sum you dream of.

Bitcoin and other cryptos have shown the world an easy way to make money practically out of thin air.
This lead to increased interest, and too many people rushed to join this craziness. Some of them made a fortune, most of the others simply lost their money.

The situation was similar during the gold rush. Some diggers found gold, most of the others left with nothing.
Shops, taverns and brothels made the biggest money in that period.

The same principle applies to the current situation. The best way to make money on the overheated market is to provide this market with what it needs most.
I'm involved into blockchain industry as a marketing specialist and this is one of the most reliable ways to make money here.

Check the wallet where the money is transferred. Make a small transaction and see through etherscan where the funds are forwarded afterward.
If the funds leave the wallet soon after they arrived there, be cautious and better stay away from this project.

Not 'when', but 'if'. This future is not likely to happen. At least, not with the current bitcoin's limitations.
The network capacity is just incomparable with visa and mc. Also, the constant price volatility is a huge stop-factor.

Crypto may take some part in the global economy, but it will not replace bank payments and fiat.
Just like the internet didn't replace usual mail as the means of transferring information.