To quote Nick Szabo, "Monero is also good money."

It makes different trade-offs than BTC, of course, and there's certainly criticisms that you can make. Things like tail emission, which I think is an advantage.

it's secured by less energy than BTC is. Partially as a result of its decision to pursue asic-resistant mining algos.
So certainly not as resistant to a 51% attack and therefore less appealing as SOV.

But it fulfills the digital MOE space extremely well with a good UX. It's extremely difficult to screw up your privacy.

Also, despite these Maxis harping on about relative fiat value, It's actually held its own quite well. My Monero stack is up almost 300%. Not as much as my BTC stack, but what's the sense of being greedy? 

 I lived in Japan for many years and never really saw it pay pay until i visited last time. I expect Japan to go very quickly to full digital payments, although it's been taking a surprisingly long time.