Darkcoin is providing a second option vs the monopoly of transparency in which ther coins are in. This means that if someone wants their crypto deposits / crypto transactions to be more private they'll have to move over to DRK. The transparent market is at 100% right now while the more-private market is at near 0%. In terms of "market growth potential" what will happen should be pretty easy to figure out.

With a market cap of ~8bn (BTC+other alts) to 3mn (DARKcoin), the prospect of capital flowing toward the DRK side is "significant". Even if one per cent of the "transparent" market moves to the more private market, we're talking about 80mn USD boost that is there to share for DRK or other anon coins which may follow - and they will not be necessarily mutually exclusive (one could practice transferring money through 2-3 anon coins, implementing different solutions, for extra safety / privacy). Needless to say what may happen if tax authorities start to crack down on BTC. The "just 1%" may suddenly become several % - with a corresponding boost in value of the private coins.

I mean, from a market perspective, and with such prospects being there, even if the anon market is shared by 2-3-5 different coins in the long run, this is a 9-digit to 10-digit market (xxx millions to billions) that they will share between them. Current market cap of a few million USD may seem like a joke by then. With such fundamentals, who needs hype, or pump and dumps?