The existing issues with ETH are why we currently use POA network for the Audius private beta. POA network has its own set of issues, but the 1) fast transaction confirmation time, 2) low fees, and 3) lack of congestion make it a great testbed for us.

FWIW, Hedgehog works with any web3-compliant API, in our case core.poa.network but could be any other one of developer's choosing eg. Infura

Sidechains like Loom network are making progress, but Ethereum 2.0 is a ways off.

Could you explain you statement with facts ?

Loom has better scalability. Most transactions can happen on a sidechain.

https://medium.com/loom-network/everything-you-need-to-know-...

Ethereum 2.0 will have sharding. That should speed up transactions but sidechains will probably always be cheaper and sometimes no fee.