. A growing acceptance of crypto in general (vs the current stagnation). Everyone I know now knows about bitcoin without me telling them. None of them show much interest in it. Adoption has ceased as everyone knows and anyone who wants to use it is. This is much the same with XMR. Everyone who wants to use it / be in on it now is. Most people who own bitcoin and are semi regulars in the crypto world know about it.
Yes I describe this as a crypto dark age. There just isn't much going on in terms of opening of new markets or increased demand for the technology (broadly speaking I include both XMR and BTC here). Look at the BTC chart over the past 10 months. In the moment it seems like a lot is going on with daily/weekly pumps and dumps, China bans, MtGox implosion, but zoomed out you just see stagnation and slow decline.
It will take something new and important to break out of this pattern.