Monero - You can't go wrong with. King of Privacy and will be for a while.
Verge - Meh, don't trust the developers and they barely just released stealth. I only ever see people investing in Verge to try and make money, not use it for privacy.
DeepOnion - all hype/marketing, no tech. I feel like the only reason they have such a large community was because of the airdrop program. Concerning when it ends.
Another coin to check out would be Spectrecoin (XSPEC). Its got Tor, OBFS4 so it works in Tor blocked places like China & Iran, ring signatures, fast speeds, and its a Proof of Stake coin so you get a 5% yearly return on your coins if you're staking them. The 2.0 release for XSPEC is going to make stealth addresses default (right now they're optional) and introduce Stealth Staking. People don't think Stealth Staking is possible, so it could be a good investment if you get in before its implemented in Q2 2018. Feel free to join the slack and talk to the developers and do your own research.
So basically, I'd go with Monero if you're looking for something that works well RIGHT NOW. Should definitely look into XSPEC though.
XSPEC is a scam.
The top 1000 holders own 99% of the coins.
It has a richlist, with a public blockchain where everything is visible.
Notice how this person has nothing of quality to say about the topic at hand, he just follows threads around involving XSPEC and calls it a scam. He's just as bad as people that shill XSPEC saying "WILL 500X MOON I promise no doubt".
Top 1000 holders issue:
According to the public blockchain, a large amount of coins appear to be held by only a few wallets, is this an issue?
Some people express concern that a large amount of Spectrecoin is concentrated in a few wallets and that the individuals who own the wallets may sell a large quantity of Spectrecoin at once, thus causing the price to drop drastically.
If this were to occur it would simply be a natural process of supply and demand, and under most conditions the price would correct in a reasonable amount of time as buyers purchase the Spectrecoin for a cheaper price. Additionally as the daily traded volume of Spectrecoin increases, the chance of a significant price drop due to a large amount of Spectrecoin for sale on the market decreases.
Furthermore if it were to happen multiple times, the chance of it happening again would exponentially decrease as the Spectrecoins would be distributed more evenly throughout the network, further reducing the risk of a sudden massive sell-off of Spectrecoin by any single individual.
It would also be unwise for any single individual to sell a large amount of Spectrecoins at once because they would not receive a desirable price. It would make sense for the individual to sell them over time.
Similarly, there are large holders of Bitcoin, and although the price has changed dramatically at times due to supply and demand and market corrections, it has increased steadily over time as most large holders know it would be unwise to sell all at once.
Richlist and public blockchain:
Why does Spectrecoin have a rich list?
With the use of a block explorer it is possible to view the transactions that have occurred on the public blockchain; this data can be used to compile a rich list. However, any such list is inaccurate, as Spectrecoin has both public and stealth addresses, and the stealth addresses are not visible on the public blockchain.
Once stealth addresses and transactions become default with the planned 2.0 update, the already inaccurate rich list information will become obsolete.
Someone on the spectrum responded to me, heh.
So the defense of the top holders owning the majority of the coin, is:
It would also be unwise for any single individual to sell a large amount of Spectrecoins at once because they would not receive a desirable price. It would make sense for the individual to sell them over time.
So it would be unwise for the top holders to sell, so they are currently selling slow to milk their profits over time. Heh. So the top 1000 that own 99% and the top 100 that own 82% are going to slowly scam people. Got it. Is this Bitconnect 2.0? Rhetorical question.
With the use of a block explorer it is possible to view the transactions that have occurred on the public blockchain; this data can be used to compile a rich list. However, any such list is inaccurate, as Spectrecoin has both public and stealth addresses, and the stealth addresses are not visible on the public blockchain. Once stealth addresses and transactions become default with the planned 2.0 update, the already inaccurate rich list information will become obsolete.
So in defense of the rich list, the current consensus is that they have one because only a few people use the OPTIONAL privacy features... The rich list is inaccurate? Currently the Top 1000 people OWN 99% of the coins. If you want to see a more dramatic change in that, the coins need to be hidden. But they're not. It's fucking public because people are too dumb to figure out that XSPEC is not private. The richlist shows the holders of the largest wallets because they are publically visible and they are MEANT to be visible. No stealth addresses would change that. They're public, and people can follow 99% of the transactions on the blockchain thats public. They're not default currently. Thus calling it a privacy coin right now is a
SCAM. In the future, once it has the features of other coins then we can have the talk about it being a privacy coin.
At its current state it's NOT private.
XSPEC is a SCAM