Could privacy features be the reason for Monero's long-term investment value?

I’ve heard a saying in the Bitcoin community: Monero is like Bitcoin's hooker—everyone uses Monero to go in and out, but no one wants to hold onto it. The most important utility of a currency is as a store of value. Imagine a scenario where all Bitcoin users use Monero atomic swaps to wash their coins or use Monero as an anonymous payment channel, but no one is willing to hoard Monero. In this case, Monero holders are at the greatest disadvantage because they bear the tail-end inflation just to provide a low-cost anonymity layer for other cryptocurrencies.

Or perhaps this is a question of how to view Monero’s positioning and valuation. Should Monero be benchmarked against gold, or is it merely the best decentralized coin-mixer and anonymous payment channel? If it’s the latter, then Monero’s current market cap might not be considered cheap.

Even if a future event brings widespread awareness of Bitcoin’s privacy issues, with Monero's current development path, how can it retain those who exchange their coins, rather than just having liquidity come in to wash the coins and leave again?