Almost hit the nail on the head, but not quite. It needs an economy, and DNMs are the critical bootstrap to a level of liquidity where the storage and transfer capacity corresponds to the needs of big money users (HNWIs, corps, and TLAs). Right now DNMs are reeling and traffic is negligible. But in less than 6 months there will be 20x the DNM throughput that we saw in SR1 , which took BTC to USD100, and perhaps 50% of that traffic will be denominated XMR, which will put the unit cost around $1000 by March - before the FOMO is factored in.
These are the last cheap coins, people.
I wish I could share your optimism.
Nice green candles for XMR, but this is BTC related....
BCH suddenly getting to be more profitable to mine than BTC is causing wobbles.
Of course it's a BCH pump by Ver / Chinese forces et al - but with the very fast difficulty adjustment it has (which BTC doesn't) making it viable, miners could leave (Core) BTC to mine BCH. Then it could be a problem for BTC.
The side benefit for us could be 'Steady Eddie' Monero appearing a safe haven, hence the sudden price move. If XMR does see DNM use at anything like the levels Aminorex rightly points out are likely...
Perfect storm?