Wow, there is a pump going on with this coin.
I should have bought more.
Any reason for the pump?
There is a ton of competition, perhaps people are exchanging their DRK?
Marginal supply cost is rising due to difficulty. I currently estimate the cost of mining 1 XMR at
0.0104 0.0109 BTC. Supply drys up when price is lower (after all holdout coins mined or purchased at a lower price have been sold to holders). As long as there is enough available demand to soak up the supply, this will be a (rising, with difficulty) support level. When the demand fails, there will be a mismatch with difficulty and a chaotic correction will ensue. That is the dangerous time. Be careful out there. After it is over, we will probably resume the rising price/difficulty trend again, assuming that infrastructure progress and/or elevated awareness resuscitate demand.
Or perhaps you were wondering why difficulty was so high. That is because XMR is more desirable than any other coin, because it offers liquidity, security, privacy, fungibility, fairness, recognition and deflation in a single package. No other crypto available today can offer this bundle of highly desirable features. The weakest point is recognition, but the name helps a lot, and bitcoin has demonstrated how recognition will inevitably follow from superior technology. Some of the other points have their problems as well, but the solutions are known, and progress is being actively made on all of them. Other crypto tries to pretend they are not problems, or offers inferior solutions, often proven to be unworkable (e.g. coinjoin).
And yes, I sold all my DRK to buy XMR long ago. With XMR you don't pay the Duffield tax, and you can achieve much better privacy.
. Thanks again for your help much appreciated 
