DASH has anonymity ADDED as a FEATURE.
XMR has anonymity BUILT-IN TO THE PROTOCOL as a FUNCTION.
So next time, if anyone asks which coin is more "anonymous", I think you guys have an answer right here.
Thats why I didn't invest in XMR. Because it's run by a couple of trainspotters who don't understand money.
If you're communicating nuclear secrets then you want your message encrypted for sure.
On the other hand if your exchanging money then you want your transaction as *transparent as possible* while using a monetary medium that's as *fungible* as possible.
Historically, gold worked as money, not because it was easy to hide transactions, but rather because it was ultimately fungible due to its low melting point. That meant that for the most part gold coins represented the currency of the day but had an additional insurance policy that they could be melted down to create a new monetary medium when required that retained none of its historical baggage. (Because governments just stole all the gold cons, melted them down and made new ones. What made gold "money" wasn't the fact that it could be hidden, it was the fact it could be ultimately melted down and used for a new purpose).
Darkcoin / Dash's evolution has been characterised by monetary priorities - not cryptographical ones - which is why it is starting to emerge as a "useable" monetary medium rather than an interesting lab experiment. Dash is an electronic monetary medium which inherits gold's exact properties of "optional fungibility". In addition, it has 2 enhancements over gold:
[1] - 'the physical" can travel through wires
[2] - you don't need a 'smithy'. You can "melt" it yourself right in your wallet by passing it through up to 16 rounds of optional, pre-emptive darksend (or you can keep it in coins !)
To have implemented - on an electronic platform - a form of money that inherits the "Satoshi" principles in every respect while adding the insurance of "meltdown and recreate" IMO is pretty amazing.