My concern over CryptoNote team is that they are shady as hell. They say this project is for education but their actions seem to be different. not transparent at all.
I believe that XMR and BBR are the leading coins, no matter what CryptoNote team does. Developers behind XMR and BBR have good understanding of CryptoNote specs already.
If I ignore everything
said and look at what is
done I see a CN field with three main participants. The XMR team, BBR team and the CN team. I follow XMR and I am active within BBR. I see these two teams very actively trying to be #1. XMR and BBR point out each others weaknesses and borrow each others code.
Then there is CN team. After 2+ years in obscurity, they (along with BCN) let themselves be known. Why after 2 years did they become public within weeks of each other?
Most of the CN clones have the same release/die off cycle. They get released with one changed parameter (emission, merged-mine, block time, meme) and silence from the developer. The developer posts that something is coming then disappears for another week. The grammar and cryptic messages are always similar.