If you will allow me to play devils advocate. I have very little faith in the mental faculties of my fellow man. Consequently I find it hard to believe that dash failed to gain traction on the darknet markets it was introduced on as a result of any sort of technical understanding on the part of market actors. Meaning, to most of them, monero is going to appear indistinguishable. What reason do we have to believe a private currency will gain traction this time when it failed last time?
Dash uses its own version of Coinjoin, which DNM were already using to tumble.
But Dash's version has far less volume, so mixing takes hours or days.
And most DNM ops understood it was instamined.
Awareness of fungibility, block size, hard forkability, and the dangers of bad crypto (thanks DAO) are at ATH. XMR was already on the anon community radar since Shen broke Shadowcash, if not earlier.
This is the best answer, IMO.
It feels to me that this is the third "real" test of cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin proved that it was possible. Ethereum almost made it, but the hype vs flaws deflated that dream (which it may eventually overcome - at least for dapps).
This is Monero's time to shine. And it's ours to lose.
We have the technical innovation. We have a great community. We can do this.
