[cowtools]

The number of nodes doesn't really matter as long as it's sufficiently high. The network security is mostly based on how decentralized the hash-power is (or staking-power) is.

You're right that better measures are number of transactions-per-second, merchant acceptance, etc:

https://mempool.space/lightning https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/transactions-btc-eth-lt... https://moneroj.net/merchants/

I agree that crypto games have been pretty pitiful in their current incarnation, outside of gambling applications (thanks to provable fairness). They have a bad reputation of being too centralized and pay-to-win, which is really the only problem cryptocurrency is supposed to solve.