We are seeing several factors contributing to the rise of XMR: Trump's 25% tariffs on countries trading with Iran (Iran often uses crypto to circumvent USA sanctions), the migration of the public from Zcash to XMR as I mentioned, high repression in some countries around the world, and the tightening of regulations on BTC and other derivative coins, and the ban that is helping XMR more than anything else.
I'm not saying that XMR will be the new Bitcoin, Bitcoin is irreplaceable. My bet is that privacy will be the central theme in the Bitcoin-crypto conversation. It will burst the bubble and that also helps Bitcoin. I want Bitcoin adoption to increase, especially in countries with emerging economies, where people need it most.
That's really a good point that many are using XMR for this purpose, as they also said they are selling their weapons for crypto and even created a website, haha, so now they are using XMR instead of BTC. Well, that's good for the privacy coins at least.
I understand that XMR can't replace Bitcoin because the government would never adopt it the way they have adopted Bitcoin. I do agree that privacy is going to be the central theme because, sooner or later, these etf investors are going to avoid etfs and will prefer to hold coins with privacy and more security.