Interesting, thanks for the insight.  So it seems the main differences between the two, is that Shadow is on a bitcoin blockchain, which gives it some advantages.  For example it can plug in better with existing infrastructure, and have benefits of both transparent chain and anonymous chain. Also since only about 1% of transactions are used for anonymity, it will have less blockchain bloat than Monero where 100% of the transactions are done using ring sigs. Also Shadow's system is slightly different because the destruction of SDC, and then the minting of new SDC, which is not happening with cryptonote.  I believe the SDCDev had highlighted this fact before when comparing the two systems.  I wonder if this destruction and reminting gives it any privacy advantages.  I am really interested to see the review and how these systems compare to each other.