Well, I will answer my own question, because I think that Monero hands are or will be stronger than bitcoin hands. This is second generation holdings. People have learned from what can happen if you leave your old hard drive in a land fill, or if you buy a pizza for 10k btc (WITHOUT replenishing your holding), just spending it nilly willy.
I understand that the aim for Monero is to be cash, but I surmise that a lot of holders are more frugal about their usage of their coins now and at least replenish their holdings up to a individually predetermined amount.

I still say 0.035 was crazy cheap.  A risk-weighted discounting of future valuation scenarios tells me it was crazy cheap then, and is even crazier cheap today, when risks are significantly less.  Unfortunately, I recently developed a taste for rather aged Barolos (and did not have the benefit of realizing their merits at an earlier age, when i could have put them down cheaply), which is definitely causing some heartache:  XMR for tomorrow, or a sultry luscious red for tonight?  Fortunately I already have enough XMR to buy a smallish continent (in the most optimistic scenarios) so I don't feel stupid when I indulge my senses a bit.

Regarding the coming BTC run-up:  It seems likely that any BTC boom will be accompanied by significant factors which will have the effect of raising awareness of the risks inherent in the transparent ledger.  Such events will occur with increasing frequency due to (1) state agents gaining facility with BTC, and (2) financial repression ratcheting up.

Given the robust history of XMR, and the relatively mature level of understanding of the practical as well as theoretical risk geometry of the technology, I think that the probability of a new crypto overtaking XMR is much less now.  In particular it seems very unlikely that any large institutional crypto will incorporate competitive privacy features, as much of the value of crypto to such institutions lies in control of information flow.  Almost certainly the overwhelming bulk of the risk in XMR lies in the development team.  At 5mm market cap, they may avoid subornation and subversion.  At 1000x that, not so much.



 

It's really a loop that will feed on itself though. If Monero price keeps going up more of the miners will hoard their coins in speculation that they will be worth more "tomorrow", which then leads to a lower available emission on the exchanges, which then creates a more limited supply -> Leading to more hoarding and so on.

Also since most of XMR trading is done via bitcoin the value of XMR could just be seen fixed to what amount of bitcoin you would get for it (rather than a USD amount). If bitcoin goes up in price lets say back to $1000 and XMR is able to hold its exchange rate relative to bitcoin at 0.0025 (lets say that's the current price) then XMR would be worth almost 5x the fiat price it currently is without having to perform better against bitcoin at all. Also after the rise in price of bitcoin suddenly people turn to altcoins as a way to try to increase their profit margins (since they can rise and fall faster in smaller market caps) which could then actually boost its BTC/XMR exchange rate adding to an even higher USD rate. My example of this happening would be what happened to litecoin after bitcoin went through the roof.

I agree we have a lock on the #2 spot in this space, but something will still have to happen to #1.  And it is only relevant that the #1 privacy coin is deeply flawed insofar as it causes it's decline from the top spot.  I don't see enough evidence that is coming yet. Thoughts there?

The most optimistic is pretty damn broad. How about Bitcoin tears itself apart with the bullshit over the block size or some other political crap, LTC is gone by then (could happen within a few months in my view), and Monero is the most credible PoW cryptocurrency project left standing (some of the less dysfunctional Bitcoin developers would likely join and we would welcome them), which then takes off globally within 3-5 years for a valuation well into the trillions. So yes, that is 1m or more.

Before I'm accused of being a pumper, I'm not making a "call" here, but you asked about most optimistic. Honestly I'm not even sure I reached it. I may not be creative enough.

Yeah, I was curious what aminorex was thinking of when he typed that, but I'm always happy to hear other people's insights on this, and from all my reading this past month on crypto in general and monero specifically, I've kind of take you as a somewhat authoritative person on the topic, so thanks for your input

For me, I'm not sure what a "most optimistic" scenario would be, but I think a somewhat "realistic most optimistic" hope is that Monero increases 100-200x on BTC, so to about 0.2-0.4BTC/XMR, and BTC goes up by about 100-200x, bringing the total to 10,000-40,000x current value.

The "best case" that I would say is "somewhat realistic" for BTC is around 1m. You can get there with the digital gold use case among others.

I don't really know what the "realistic" best cases are for the XMR/BTC ratio. So the "best case" for XMR that I can compute comes from the catastrophic hedge scenario where it replaces BTC and takes over BTC's upside that I just described.

Most optimistic, monero is the vanguard that not only protects the integrity of what vestiges of a free market we have now but further leads to the creation of a true free market renaissance and destroys the state in the sense that it will be forced to fund its self through voluntary donations only. In this future sure some are wealthier than others, but just like how modern day poor are in some sense wealthier than kings of old, even the poor in the future will be in most ways better off than billionaires today. Most optimistic, monero makes everyone wealthier in ways that we cant even begin to imagine, even people who never touch the stuff.

*edit* though i think its more accurate to frame this in the context of a broader trend of decentralization of which monero is a small (or potentially large) part rather than to put too much weight on the shoulders of this particular project specifically.

I was wondering, is there a payment processor for monero out? Like code that you can add to your website if youre a merchant to accept moneroj.

xmr.to

is the closest we have.