Although I like Monero, please remember that it has not even a fraction of the proof of work protection and security of bitcoin. I've long considered that there will be one dominant "transparency coin" and one dominant "privacy coin".

I realize that Monero offers the option to be transparent, but I doubt it will ever catch bitcoin in that realm. Also the proof of work security promise of bitcoin will not likely be matched with Monero.

At a glance I would estimate that bitcoin could aspire to the level of the "above ground" market and Monero might aspire to the level of the "underground" market.

What is "manipulation", really? What is "natural"?

Of course a component of the rally is speculation due to the news on DNMs. I would even bet it is the largest component. These last few days are completely unprecedented in Monero-land; the correlation with the news is extremely strong. Is this speculation "manipulation"? There are of course other components as well. You seem to be assigning a high (nay, overwhelming) % to some other "manipulation" by those with "large bags of BTC to play with".

The XMR market represents the current consensus on the price of XMR. Part of that consensus is "manipulation"; part is "natural"; part might be "other". No market participant is exactly like another. You do not and cannot *know* the intent of the market participants except yourself. You can thus only guess at what you think is going on. When you say in the affirmative "This IS manipulation", you declare that which you do not know.

You request "our" arguments for "natural" growth, but provide none for "manipulation" beyond that it "is obvious".

Besides, until we have no market for turning XMR in $ or €, the cashout probably will still be in BTC, which does not lift the price of XMR a little bit.

Checked on Alphabay to see how Monero is doing there. Its not even begun and there are 75 pages of items from sellers that accept Monero, lots of them are accepting Monero ONLY. No need to brag any more, image is worth a thousand words 

http://imgur.com/a/nkOQr

Besides, until we have no market for turning XMR in $ or €

While I of course agree that XMR has nowhere near the POW security that Bitcoin has

Won't be long. The countdown has started. (No inside info here, just stating the obvious.)


I don't agree (largely echoing sammy007's comment). The more centralized the mining with the more barriers to entry, the less efficient a mining network is in converting raw hash rate into real security. Raw energy burn is only a small part of the equation. It is more accurate to say that it is difficult to compare the security of the two because they are quite dissimilar in nature.

Monero's security in practice is quite significant. Someone on reddit asked about building a 500kh/sec mine. That would require about 500 or more devices (higher-end GPUs or CPUs) and still only be about 2% of the network hash rate (which will likely rise significantly if this repricing is sustained). Already and for some time Monero's network has ranked among the largest supercomputers and with the repricing may soon surpass all supercomputers. There is no "easy" attack on Monero's hash rate possible or likely.