If you were paying attention other anonymous coins are also rising. NAV and SDC have reached high prices because of the Monero darknet news. The next time there is hype with one coin always look for other coins that are directly competing with it that also have similar features. If one day there is again hype on ETH then look at the movement of ETC and LSK.
Yes, I like to stay abreast of anonymous coin development. I don't trust SDC since it was built on Bitcoin's code, which isn't anonymous (and never claimed to be anonymous), plus this:
https://www.deepdotweb.com/2016/02/17/shadowcash-deanonymized/ EDIT: SDC and NAV both have Rich Lists, and people can see how much of a coin is in an address, so they're not private.
You're correct about the "niche fever." As with pretty much all cryptos, if one coin in a niche market does well, the others get pumped, and this often has nothing to do with the coin's innate qualities or whether it's been tested and peer-reviewed. This happened recently in the "storage coin" niche: MAID did well, so SC also had an upswing. It's almost all "niche fever," and if people can make money from the swing, then good for them. But as for choosing a peer-reviewed and tested private and untraceable coin, only one fits that bill. The odd thing is that it took darkmarket recognition before Monero's price had a dramatic rise. Monero was just as private and untraceable before the rise. I suppose my point is that a price rise (or fall) does not necessarily mean that the coin is good at what it purports to do.
The darkmarkets depend on privacy and untraceability far more than the average person does. They must have put a lot of time and research into which coin to choose, and their decision must have been based solely on the technology and capability of the coin. They have too much to lose to do otherwise. Their choosing Monero speaks volumes.
