Why is Monero not the most popular and well-known cryptocurrency?

Hey everyone,

I was wondering why Monero (XMR) is not as well-known as some of the other digital currencies. I’m thinking of competing coins such as Bitcoin, ETH, Litecoin, and even Dogecoin.

Monero is of course not perfect, but it is in my opinion far ahead of the competition and has about everything you would want in a cryptocurrency:

Very low transaction fees Fairly fast transaction speeds Excellent privacy (by default) Highly secure thanks to great cryptography Fungibility (all units are interchangeable) Fairly easy to use, especially thanks to good wallets Can be used at a growing number of stores online and offline Good ability to scale thanks to its adaptive block size Great community with friendly and smart members Talented developers who regularly make good but prudent improvements

In my mind, more popular cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin have too many flaws. Monero is what Bitcoin was supposed to be all along – digital cash. Today, Bitcoin, although initially promising, seems more like a proof of concept.

“Monero is what Bitcoin noobs think they bought“ – Daniel Kim during his keynote speech at DEF CON 2019 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8PBOVDWO6Y)

I guess one could argue that it’s not as easy to get a hold of Monero as some of the other cryptocurrencies. Perhaps that is its greatest flaw right now. However, it is still fairly accessible thanks to LocalMonero, Bisq, and Kraken. Very soon it will also be offered on decentralized exchanges such as Serai and Haveno.

Despite all of this, it still seems to be less popular than some of the other cryptocurrencies that are, at least in my mind, objectively inferior. It certainly has a much lower market cap than many of the other ones.

Why is this? Do you have any theories? Do you think this will change in the future?