Stepping back and taking the 50,000-foot overview, the thing I hope and pray for is that corporate entities and organizations step in and see the benefits of blockchain technology and invest themselves in it before banks and governments come in and try to regulate and prohibit cryptos as a "threat" to the conventional economy of the world.

I'm not saying cryptos wouldn't survive such efforts... just suggesting that if a lot of corporate "power players" are already on the blockchain bandwagon it's going to be a lot harder for government and regulatory intervention to to have real teeth. It's one thing to regulate a $50 billion "alt economy" to its knees... quite something else to regulate cryptos if the market cap were $5 trillion. Few legislators would want that much blood on their hands...

I already have experienced the edges of interference, here in Washington state... my Poloniex account was deactivated because the state is making it super hard for crypto exchanges here (with regulations and fees) because "someone" determined that many in the marijuana industry (legal here) were using BTC and alt coins as a way to bypass fees and taxes.

You're right, patience is essential. The most recent parallel I can think of is called "The Internet." When I first got email and online access (1993) it was considered a strange hangout for "extremely nerdy geeks and creepy pedophiles." I would say it was a good TEN years before the "creepy" image faded in the background and a phrase like "my mom is on the Internet" became commonplace... and it really didn't "go big" till Facebook got serious traction.