Nice volume and price up from what now looks like a definitive bottom test in spite of BTC rise...

Much more positive.

Sounds like a really horrible idea. They will blame you if they lose the money.

I think it really depends. If you clearly explain that it's highly volatile and a speculative bet, but with immense potential to the upside while 'only' 100% downside, it's fine I guess. Just don't have them bet the farm, but an amount which they won't miss, but are happy when doubled. If someone has hardly any savings, don't. If they have a healthy portfolio or a decent chunk of savings, plus they don't plan on retiring soon, for the love of god let them get a fraction of that in xmr. I think that is actually a crime if you NOT recommend doing so (be it a very tiny percentage). It is their choice in the end. It's all about presenting the full picture (up AND downside, opportunities AND risks), and not hypesell them into pooring shitloads into it.

I've done this, and yes, i get shit sometimes since we're down, more of a joke/making fun really. But I don't feel like I've mislead them or anything (and so don't they). I've clearly laid out how i see things, and not one of them did an amount which I consider too crazy looking at their financial situation. I'm still fairly confident they'll be happy with the advice in the long run. And if not, part of the game. I think the opportunity was good (and could arguably be even better now) so you take a shot. Whatever the result, the opportunity was there. Hindsight 20/20 right?

Is this how you feel better about your investment crashing? Justifying it by saying it's been stable in USD?
XMR has not been stable. It's been crashing hard. Except for a brief period in the pre-exchange era the price is at all time lows. I'm just sitting here hoping it won't break 0.001 support.

If XMR is not going to outperform BTC why not just own BTC instead? If it's USD you want it makes more sense to hold BTC as long as the ratio falls. I'm not going to be happy with XMR at $1, $10 or even $100 if the XMR/BTC ratio crashes. I never watch the USD price, is seems completely irrelevant.

A falling XMR/BTC ratio indicates failure to compete in the cryptocurrency space.

I agree, this will happen at some point, but previously it has happened after a longer rally in BTC. So I wouldn't really expect it to happen yet if history is any indication.

Quite possibly, in case of short term BTC price spikes altcoin investors might be willing to realize their profit on BTC thus divesting from their altcoins. But in the long term, I think I'd agree with you. The 2014 euphoria seems to have totally faded away; altcoins market in total is still much less than BTC market.

You could monitor the waited average BTC/USD/EUR price here: moneroprice.i2p.xyz. On my opinion it wasn't so irrelevant in the past year. And yes, the XMR/BTC trend should reverse at some point. On my opinion the reverse will happen soon if the whales in the XMR community are making money in this BTC rise. It seems that new people are slowly coming in the BTC world and some in the Monero too, but at the current moment the XMR price depends on the whales, not the newcomers.

Monero is surprisingly stable. Its holding value even with such a brutal emission. That clearly is a sign that it has a large following

I really don't consider that to be a problem, payment providers will jump in this gap. There are and will be dozens of different digital currencies, all with their own specifics. Monero's is privacy and fungibility. Monero to fiat or bitcoin makes no difference to me.