These are good points. Monero is kind of fascinating to me as a concept, primarily because people use it because they *need* to, more than because they *want* to. People get into Bitcoin for all sorts of reasons, many of them voluntary (and related to number-go-up). On the other hand, while there are of course privacy advocates and others who are ideologically attracted to Monero (and I respect that), I have to assume that most users choose it because they require a high level of privacy in order to avoid government persecution and/or violence.

This means they’re presumably a lot less sensitive to price when compared to anyone who “invests” in Bitcoin. Yes if Monero “goes to zero” then you’d have a hard time valuing it or exchanging it for goods and services, but by that same token (no pun intended) it likely has a much larger percentage of users/holders who transact with it, compared to the percentage of Bitcoin-holders who *only* hold.

Of course some price manipulation could happen, and I have no way to know what percentage of Monero is held by active spenders compared to investors/traders, but I’d guess it’s not insignificant.

It’s an interesting thought experiment. If the above is accurate, it would require someone manipulating the price so high that enough users sell their stacks, at which point it kind of defeats the purpose, if they’re all waiting to buy back in when the price is manipulated lower. Don’t underestimate the anarchists, I guess.

Or maybe none of that is right! But it’s an interesting thought experiment…