I never heard of PirateChain until now, so I skimmed the white paper and it looks pretty cool! I don't fully understand how the ZCash zero-knowledge transaction system works, admittedly, but it always bothered me that privacy was optional. From my reading it seems like, among other things, Pirate Cash is basically ZCash but with privacy always on, right?

For now I think I'll stick to Monero, just for the sake of it being battle-tested by criminal groups. It's sort of like alternative anonymity networks like i2p in my view. They may be superior in every way, but until someone is willing to put their neck on the line betting on that tech, I can't really be sure how well it works if only because I don't have the technical background to consider all possible weaknesses to the new system. I still might buy in though, I got into Monero way too late but I'm in now and holding on tight.