This is why I'll maintain privacy is a matter of usage, but is not a property of money.
Money without optional privacy is a Dark Age.
It is ridiculous to assert that viable privacy is orthogonal to money.
Privacy against the NSA with Bitcoin is very tedious if not impossible.
As we move further into the coming Economic Totalitarianism, the possibility of this Dark Age will become more obvious and visceral.
Problem for Monero is they sell it as being more robust anonymity than CoinJoin or DarkCoin, but Monero is not likely immune to the NSA either since I posit that both I2P and Tor are compromised. Monero's mining would become centralized too if the usage rose to what Bitcoin is facing now.
Climbing the wall of what we need technologically is a massive undertaking.