Dash's rally lately has been interesting, but it deserves scrutiny. As a Litecoin fork, its supposed privacy advantage doesn't hold up under closer inspection—it actually underperforms competitors like Litecoin in genuine privacy mechanics. The real driver? A narrative that stuck around since 2015, when PrivateSend first caught attention. That branding created an illusion of privacy that never quite matched reality.

What's worth watching is how Litecoin might briefly overtake both ZEC and XMR. It's not necessarily about technical superiority in privacy features, but rather market sentiment and use case adoption. The irony is thick—a coin that doesn't prioritize privacy could temporarily outpace established privacy coins due to broader liquidity and trading volume. It's a reminder that narrative and market perception often move faster than actual fundamentals. The privacy coin narrative deserves a reality check.