1st = Nobody (99%) cares about privacy ever: Total privacy is just a niche market (selling illegal stuff, hiding wealth if you're rich (think of a replacement for offshore bank accs)). In this case XMR (I will use XMR because it's the main one) would go up slowly over time in USD value. Will it go higher measured in BTC? Probably no.
2nd = privacy becomes more and more relevant as BTC becomes the de-facto SOV or MOE when people finally realize that it can all be tracked. In this scenario XMR would be worth it but several years down the line (let's say at least 10 years = 2 more cycles).
3rd = privacy is relevant for the common guy but it gets implemented into BTC somehow, making it a semi-private cryptocurrency, enough for most people to still use it. In this scenario XMR survives as a very niche crypto.
I would love for XMR to become the real MOE, but seeing how the average guy cares jack shit about privacy the 3rd scenario seems the most plausible. The trend is for first-movers to become bigger and bigger while the dev community provides solutions to the most pressing problems (fees, speed, privacy, etc). The same is happening with ETH and LINK.
Nonetheless, I still hold a stack of XMR just in case, cause this world is crazy and anything can happen.
I agree with you.
Scenarios that come to mind:
1st = Nobody (99%) cares about privacy ever: Total privacy is just a niche market (selling illegal stuff, hiding wealth if you're rich (think of a replacement for offshore bank accs)). In this case XMR (I will use XMR because it's the main one) would go up slowly over time in USD value. Will it go higher measured in BTC? Probably no.
2nd = privacy becomes more and more relevant as BTC becomes the de-facto SOV or MOE when people finally realize that it can all be tracked. In this scenario XMR would be worth it but several years down the line (let's say at least 10 years = 2 more cycles).
3rd = privacy is relevant for the common guy but it gets implemented into BTC somehow, making it a semi-private cryptocurrency, enough for most people to still use it. In this scenario XMR survives as a very niche crypto.
I would love for XMR to become the real MOE, but seeing how the average guy cares jack shit about privacy the 3rd scenario seems the most plausible. The trend is for first-movers to become bigger and bigger while the dev community provides solutions to the most pressing problems (fees, speed, privacy, etc). The same is happening with ETH and LINK.
Nonetheless, I still hold a stack of XMR just in case, cause this world is crazy and anything can happen.