I think the next evolution of privacy coins will allow non-private projects to use privacy services to privatize their primary use case. NFTs > Private NFTs... DATA > Private Data... E-Commerce > Private E-Commerce. etc. Privacy is about more thant just discrete P2P. Given that, I think the future lies in interoperability and chains that can figure out how to do it well. Secret is cool and a good step with dapp deployment but it seems dapps will need to deploy on their chain. Instead I'm looking for projects that can interop with existing apps and color tokens / tx with privacy. D4RK seems to be headed in that direction with their move to DOT. Currently they're working on 2 services e-commerce storefronts and private ipfs. but it's early to tell exactly what the end game looks like.

That being said privacy chains that just do transactions and do it well have a place. Monero is leading the pack (last I checked) but I heard although difficult... tx can be traced. So hopefully things on that front can improve.