Criteria: it must be working now and solve real-world problems (that disqualifies 90% of alts), works well, and has near-future feature releases. That combination means you have an undervalued coin that is an excellent investment.
That equals Monero.
It solves real world problems now and it does it well. It's the most private currency: a richlist isn't even possible, and even the US doesn't know how many Monero were held by Alphabay because...it's that private.
Public blockchains can be traced and are being traced now. That's why Bitmixer closed. You may think that since you're not a drug dealer that you don't need privacy, but what happens when you make a purchase with a non-private coin and the salesman does 1-3 minutes of public blockchain research and finds out you have a ton of crypto? He may pay you a visit with a monkey wrench later and force you to give up your wealth. That can't happen with Monero since its blockchain is private. People will pay for that and they're catching on to this.
Factor in that it has upcoming mobile wallets, hardware wallets, multisig, and KovriI2P, and that will all increase demand, which usually increases price.
That makes a lot of sense, thanks for pointing out Monero's conveniences. XMR was there for ages but I never paid enough attention. Do you think it's better than other anon coins like XVG, PIVX?
It's much better than XVG (below) and PIVX (see the DASH section of
https://moneroforcash.com/monero-vs-dash-vs-zcash-vs-bitcoinmixers.php).
Verge uses I2P and Tor to hide the origination of the transmission. But its blockchain is open and transparent like Bitcoin's. For example, here's a Verge address: DGjVzyPaKMBiwzWoQyVsEAD2YLT5xoht9z. Or pick any Verge address. Go to a Verge blockchain explorer like
https://prohashing.com/explorer/Verge/ and enter a Verge address and you'll see its balance (in this case, $0 since they emptied their account of 184,088.616527 XVG on Aug 12th and eventually moved it to DT5x77TSviKPLrGQz2TAA1sr9hZ4f1LtNu). That's not private.
So Verge is just like a Bitcoin transaction over TOR.
With Monero, nobody can know your balance. Try putting in a Monero address in a blockchain explorer and see for yourself. And here's a fun link:
http://moneroblocks.info/richlist So, Monero is much more private. And, you can make Monero transactions over TOR and I2P if you want to, or go to a public wifi spot to hide your real IP. Plus, Monero will soon have baked-in I2P with its Kovri I2P router.