Increasing against BTC up to the 0.014-0.018 range, would be no big surprise.
OK, that isn't the ATH in BTC terms, but that is not a worry if BTC is mooning up over 20K in the next big run. In this case, an ATH in dollar terms is not at all unrealistic. If XMR doubles and BTC goes over double from now - which is looking likely - we will be in range easily enough.
Reasoning:
Any alt that grows against BTC in a bull run, is by definition worth holding, as you're making more money than being in BTC. Monero's clear use case, long history and liquidity means it's a pretty easy choice, plenty of OGs / opinion-formers have respect, and a soft spot for it, due to it being a real coin with an old-school 'pure' launch and good devs.
The only worry for the institutional investors is legislation or pressure that affects exchanges, but that's why half way to the BTC ATH, is realistic, a new ATH against BTC not quite so. However, as many shitcoins wane because their use cases are risible and (for the coming big consolidated exchanges) it's not worth listing them due to cost and increased attack surface risk, the cream will separate and Monero should stay the distance.
TLDR: New USD ATH? Sure, why not?
Bold emphasizes the point that many people who were into Bitcoin for the "right reasons"; which I personally believe is the pursuit of a censorship resistant, peer-to-peer, digital currency rather than the
pursuit of a government friendly/KYC compliant currency to improve ROI for essentially tech savvy Wall St. bankers. People seemed to have forgotten why S. Nakamoto created this thing in the first place. It was proven that the level of crazy shenanigans and low standards of care banks had for their customers allowed banks to set a bar so low, that S.N. developed an ingenious way to allow every day citizens in any country to use their own currency not dependant on third parties, nor a government that lets bankers get away with corruptness.
There is a case to be made to anyone who is scared of using/"investing" into something like Monero because of fear of regulation. The main fear back in the day (2011-2012) was that Bitcoin would never go mainstream due to all the negative stories associated with it due to it being used on the Dark Web/Silk Road... surely no one would want to touch that with a 10 foot pole, right?
Skip forward to now and look at any of the Bitcoin/crypto conferences of today in 2020. Suits, investment firms, you name it are there and ready to make a quick buck by trying to pump the "next big thing" BCH, XRP, ETH, etc. without the slightest idea in their mind why crypto currencies were used in the first place.
Fuck the suits. Use Monero.
