RE: Who is investing so much into "anything blockchain"?
ETH has its smart contracts for sure, but it also is a infrastructure blockchain, allowing others to build on it instead of creating new chains....at the same time, ETH is very well at gaining traction for private clones of itself with big corportation (see Ethereum Enterprise)...
So ETH has a fully different story...that said - it also still has to overcome some open issues...will be interesting.
I am with you regarding Steem - it did boost off the last days (I actually missed it and just saw it today while gathering the data of my article)...good thing.
But I think, steemit has to get some stuff done to become more than a "crypto-blogger's baby"...and I want that!
XMR - well - from what I learned the community can be very ... aggressive in its tone towards other currencies...and their proposition is not unique - zCash and "DeepWebCash" and others are all into the "anonymous currency" game...momentarily I personally doubt it will be XMR that will win that game...but who know?
Perhaps I am over zealous when it comes to XMR but I was under the impression that zCash has significantly weaker anonymity features. Then again, I was reading in XMR threads. I agree the community is overly hostile from what I've seen but that I don't know how that might translate long term.
I think the hostility will (actually already has) lead to a lot of potential users turning away...maybe trading XMR, but never using it as a trusted project/currency.
I have long given up on REALLY understanding which anonymity features are better...but my guts tell me, ZCash has a much better reputation within the influencer community (founders and devs of other projects/currencies) besides maybe bitcoin core, who seem to value XMR highly...
The only thing I see XMR stronger than ZCash is that ZCash's founders and devs are existing public people...with XMR at least I know only of FluffyPony as someone public....
Why is that important? Governments are still far from understanding the crypto sphere...at the moment they think, BTC may be more than a trend, but once they understand there are projects/currencies allowing to hide who is sending how much where - boy - they will freak. And then all publicly available people involved, have some problems to solve ... ;-)
But I think, XMRs greatest enemy is their handling of users and potential users...
From what I have seen in my limited experience, XMR is used more than zCash as an actual currency. For example alphabay takes XMR, BTC & ETH, but not zCash. I do think that theres a small change in the XMR community to try and end the hostility, your point about them turning away potential users is well made in that regard.