Here is my take on MONA.
I was, as recently as today, going to dump all my MONA for cheap. Why? I didn't think this coin was going anywhere.
Then I changed my mind.
More specifically, I remembered something from my youth.
When I was 12, I had a job at a paddle manufacturing facility. We made kayak paddles and canoe paddles. We made something like 20-30 paddles a week (my memory is foggy, this was 30yrs ago).
Suddenly, out of the blue, we were exporting hundreds of kayak paddles. Couldn't keep up with orders. Backordered for months.
Why?
For some reason I will never understand, hanging kayak paddles above your mantle became in vogue in Japan.
Then, as soon as we started to get orders under control, the fad ended. Back to 20-30 paddles a week.
The point to my story is, when the Japanese people get wind of something perceived as new and cool (and their friends like and/or use it), all bets are off. A strange kind of mania takes over and if you catch the wave at the right time you can profit handsomely.
I realise this little anecdote may be irrelevant to crypto-mining and currency speculation, but it did make me stop and hold my MONA. All I have to lose is few hours of hashing. Hats off to the speculators, I wouldn't do it but it takes balls and risk to make $$, eh?
Want more reason to hold?
Check out
http://www.reddit.com/r/monacoin Now compare it to the other alt coins like cagecoin, kittehcoin, mooncoin, billioncoin, ronpaulcoin.
Monacoin has people opening up shops accepting monacoin. All those coins above don't
Monacoin users opened up their own exchange. THEY OPENED UP THEIR OWN FULLY FUNCTIONAL EXCHANGE!
http://monatr.jp/orderbookMonacoin users are actively developing, screenshot of wallet app on reddit. Website that incorporates ransom for showing secret text.
The coins above are all on Coinedup and doing horribly(rpc doing okay maybe) because the people who have them only wanted to dump them.
Monacoin is actually being used for its intended purpose, a medium for exchange.