Monero is one of the best (if not the best) privacy-oriented cryptocurrencies in the world. Anonymity is enforced by default, making sure your transactions are safe from prying eyes. It's no wonder why XMR is the top privacy coin in market cap. Competitors like DASH, Zcash, BEAM, and even Grin don't stand a chance against Monero's ever-growing user base and mainstream demand. Yet, non-privacy coins are faring better on the market with higher gains within such a short amount of time.
First of all I don’t think that the price of Monero (XMR) has anything to do with the government and whatever that they are doing. Personally, I don’t think that a lot of people are after privacy coins, a lot of them will prefer to invest their money in bitcoin and wouldn’t put it in all these privacy coins.
But, that doesn’t mean I am trying to say that these coins are not good, because they are very good. These days I hardly hear or see anything about them at all. It’s been a long time I have seen anyone mention ZCash, and I have already forgotten about it until I discovered.
I am not quite of your opinion, but that is why we are here right? If the government forbids certain forms of transactions or economic exchange, to give it a broader name, Monero could definitely come into play. For now it seems to be the best magic money we have to protect our privacy. The public always thinks everyone using Monero has to hide something, but while that is true to some degree, it also neglects the fact that we are all entitled to some private sphere as much as if we were using cash. I wish more people would deal with the topic privacy in more detail.