It is going up because people noticed the value in it. Monero was probably the only coin that was way, way undervalued. It is the only coin that provides full and real privacy. There isn't an alternative. None. All the alternatives either offer half-assed privacy, pseudo privacy, fake privacy or not as strong as monero in terms of hash power and decentralization. Monero simply has no alternative. It is Swiss bank in your pocket. Btc used to be called same but since govs gated every mixing service and put kyc/aml on centralized services, jailed coinjoin devs; monero is there to absorb the whole privacy market. We are only seeing the effects now and it will go higher, way higher. When monero absorbs the whole thing you'll go woooooooot
*i expect another x10 from here, this is just the beginning.
You are so 100% right. I have been mining it pretty much from day one an back then I knew if this thing doesn't break for several years - because admittedly, I am not a cryptography expert - it will have its place for sure. I had some arguments against me recently and I have a bet running, I think it was when XMR was at around $300, that
XMR will go 5x before BTC will go 5x. And I repeat that! The fact alone that if BTC were to go 5x now and that XMR is already at $700, will drive XMR above $1,500 for sure.
In my opinion, XMR was a relatively safe call. Crackdowns are no argument against it. Cocaine is forbidden, so what? When people seek for low friction transactions (private, cheap, secure, tamper-proof), they'll turn to XMR. ZEC is probably going to jump on the bandwagon once more, but XMR is the clear leader here imo.
Edit: additionally, I bet that all those who smartly took their profits from the ZEC pump, probably immediately put most of it into XMR because they knew this is going to be the supposed sequence of events.
