I agree with your conclusions, but I don't think we're using "my" numbers. I was trying to point out that a "mere" 1000x isn't hard to imagine. You provided the "wide adoption" numbers as far as I can tell (I somewhat implied 4x current BTC value would be the absolute baseline for such a thing, but am in agreement the real value would be much higher).

Hmm.   I resubmitted the form with an update.  It seems that I've blown through my 6 month projection already

Right, it's just market prices, thus my confusion.

As for speculation, I think we're in the right place!

Yes, but in the chart that Rpietila posted, even a year from now the emission was still insanely high. So basically, we're expected to wait 2+ years to see a decent return?

That's not how markets work. If people expect the coin to be $10 in two years then money will rapidly flow in to support the emission at something close to $10.

If you don't expect the coin go to up, ever, the don't buy it. Clearly.

It is 20k new coins so people have something to buy. If there would be 2000, everyone would fight for them and there might be huge riots on the world. Developers thinked it all over to be perfect.

New investors buy from a pool of all available coins, not just newly minted ones. So it's actually better to have a supply of 5,000,000 and an emission of 1000 than it is to have a supply of 1,000,000 and an emission of 20,000. I really can't see any advantage to dumping 86% of your supply over 4 years, from the perspective of a few months into that timeline. Who is benefiting there? Early adopters, developers and new investors are all disadvantaged, it would seem to me.

No, the difference is that this structure is compatible with a pump-and-dump scam. So buyers always have to be wary of it, which depresses the price and ultimately serves as a competitive disadvantage against cleanly launched coins.

Only systems that are structurally incompatible with fraud don't suffer from the overhang of potential fraud.

Your argument basically comes down to centralized systems being more efficient and mining being inefficient. That might be true in an ideal world without the possibility of fraud or abuse. It isn't true in the real world.

Doesn't seem like such a high rate of emission when you consider that there are ~28000 Litecoins mined every day. If the higher price of LTC can be sustained, I see no reason why XMR cannot go much higher.