@anon136: I try to keep up with their ANN thread and over the last few weeks some unsatisfied people are popping up for a variety of reasons. Also, I think vertoe leaving made some people lose confidence. Furthermore, the statements of gmaxwell (which resulted in toknormal (a big Dash proponent) making a fool of himself), andytoshi and the XMR vs DRK thread in general might have scared away some potential investors who could've sustained the rally.
It is no secret that DRK has been propped up by a few whales and the BTC decline while not directly relevant to the DRK/BTC price may be raising some risk-management concern of how much of their wealth they want to dump into it. The same could be said for XMR I suppose, except that XMR has in practice held up better during the recent BTC drop.
A very big difference is the way BTC whales and prominent Crypto investors and pundits just collect XMR without hyping it up in the media because they see big time potential in XMR. They treat it differently to what LTC and DRK have had to offer and do not want to do a PnD on XMR like they have done to LTC and DRK in the past. It is just a completely different mindset. I have a feeling that people will be shocked when some of the famous names come out in due time. Kudos to the whales who have refused the temptation to PnD even short/mid term and letting everyone be part of XMR and have a grand vision for the future.