I see your point. Applying this same principle then we could say anyone opting for optional anonymity by using monero or zcash instead of bitcoin is looking suspicious.
That is true if monero or zcash remain niche activities. One could say that the culprit is then the unfortunate existence of bitcoin
This is like right now, where it becomes suspicious to withdraw cash. There's nothing that can be done concerning anonymity if most people can opt to use a system which entirely exposes private matters. The only thing we can hope is that sufficient users will use a privacy-protecting system, so that the use in itself of that system is not something that is suspicious as such. But there's no reason to build a system that only allows you to opt in for that privacy protection. It is much better to attract people to a system for different reasons, and to protect their privacy by default.
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A large % of people who opt to use ZEC instead of BTC will also opt to use the Z addresses instead of the T addresses.
Actually no. Right now, I haven't looked any more, but a month after launch, only about 6% of transactions were done with Z addresses. Most were 'in the clear'.
You are right that only 1% of the ZEC is currently stored in Z addresses:
https://explorer.zcha.in/statistics
I'm actually not invested in ZEC, but in Komodo which copies the zksnarks to allow anon transactions.
The main thing that sets Komodo apart is its decentralized exchange with fiat-pegged assets. There have been other decentralized exchanges that haven't been used much due to lack of liquidity. This is why the Komodo "Easydex" will have some nodes connected to centralized exchange api to insure there is always liquidity.
One of the problems with Monero market now is most users who want to use its anon functions are going through central exchange in order to do so. Easydex will allow users to go BTC->XMR->BTC or BTC->KMD->BTC without dealing directly with central exchange.
Not to mention KMD is first altcoin ever secured by Bitcoin's hashrate. KMD block hashes are being written to the Bitcoin blockchain here:
http://blockchain.info/address/1P3rU1Nk1pmc2BiWC8dEy9bZa1ZbMp5jfg
Well just use Shapeshift.io
Shapeshift is a centralized exchange with usually less than 2 BTC maximum trade limit.
Easydex is a decentralized exchange that can do direct blockchain-to-blockchain trades (aka atomic swaps) without going through a middleman. In this situation, Easydex would act as the order-matcher, but would never actually hold any coins.
Easydex will also have some "liquidity provider" nodes connected to central exchanges in order to offer instant trades in case users don't want to wait for order to be matched.
Well then we could use https://bitsquare.io/
Bitsquare and Shapeshift are both good services.
Easydex is combining Bitsquare-style trades, Shapeshift-style trades, and also fiat-pegged tokens like Bitshares has.
Easydex also has atomic-crosschain-trades between any assets you choose like KMD/XMR or XMR/BTC or ETH/KMD or EUR-peg/XMR
Here is a recent post in KMD thread that gives more detail about the development status:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1605144.msg17461420#msg17461420