I agree with what others have said about how coins whose goal is anonymity are going to be weeded out. They just won't work with KYC laws. The smart coins are recognizing this, coming to terms with it, and even embracing it, and that's a good thing. DMD Diamond recently made a statement to that effect. And DNotes, which is about to launch its version 2.0, is also fully embracing regulatory compliance. Being a holder of NEM, I'm very glad to see NEM taking that route too.
I think there will still be a market for anonymous coins, but having highly visible devs and even companies running them like XMR and Zcash currently have makes about as much sense as trying to advertise and sell heroin by having drug dealers give talks at pharmaceutical conferences. Eventually anon coins are going to be forced deep underground, and to survive they need anonymous devs.
If I want to buy illegal stuff I certainty want the dude I buy it from to take security seriously, otherwise if he gets compromised, so can I. Same logic for illegal crypto, which anon coins could be soon, squeeze these devs hard enough and they'll crack, TPTB don't play fair.
XEM is going down the full compliance path, which ultimately makes it a safer investment.
That was one of my main points, when i decided to invest in NEM. The anonymous path just can´t go well !
At least not to the stratosphere, where we are going . . .
But i still hope for my BTCP to go off, just to sell them then. Only thing, that bothers me, is that everybody can see my balance on the blockchain, it´s like playing poker with cards layed out on the table, or paying at 7/11 with a bundle of thousand dollar notes.