x/dark/dash was never about privacy or instant transactions or distributed consensus
Oh really ?
I've been following this project for almost a year and a half now and as far as I can see that's ALL it's about. The dev team to little else than pursue those precise technical objectives to the exclusion of almost all other priorities.
Maybe you just haven't noticed.
There are people that care about some ideological principle and there are people that care about making money. Dash devs fall into the later category. That is not to say that they are unable to make valuable contributions, but for edduffield its a means to an end. Ive been on this forum on and off since 2013 and i remember when the whole instamine thing happened, i remember the first darkcoin testnets and i also recall distinctly when Evan announced that he was reducing supply from 84mil to whatever it is now. This specific action was pretty fucked up and points to the crux of my criticism of dash.
That is not to say that it wont be successful, lots of successful bullshit in the world a lot less principled than the dash community. I support dash trading on my exchange.