Why is Peercoin becoming so popular?

[pf]

Peercoin is substantially different from Bitcoin/Litecoin. It's in 3rd place according to http://coinmarketcap.com

Can you explain why it's becoming this popular? It has a "centrally broadcasted checkpoint mechanism". This doesn't sound very good. Centralization is bad, isn't it?

[lumierre]

The checkpointing is going to be removed on version 0.4 or 0.5. I'm not exactly sure. The checkpointing was only intended to protect the network from abuse while it's in the early stages. It will be removed eventually.

I believe Peercoin is gaining popularity because more people are informed of what the peercoin community claims - that is Peercoin is more secure than bitcoin. Its unique Proof-of-Stake feature when generating blocks reduces risks from Selfish-Miner Cornell Flaw, ">50%" attacks, and the block bloating that haunts bitcoin since its inception. Another upside would be no specialized mining hardware is required to mint coins. Unlike bitcoin and other cryptocurrency which requires ASICs, GPUs, etc. to mine, Peercoin relies on merely coin age. Because of this, it also conserves energy to run the network.

[sangaman]

Centralization is definitely bad and it's probably my biggest concern about Peercoin. I'm still in a bit of a wait-and-see mode until it's off checkpointing, but if it gets that far without any major hiccups then it'd be a very promising sign for peercoin and proof of stake. I'm holding some coins until then.

If peercoin pans out, it would be able to secure a blockchain using far fewer resources than POW coins do, and it would do so in a way that allows anyone with coins and a basic computer to participate in the mining and confirmation process. That would be a big deal, I believe. As usual, I'm open to arguments about why peercoin might NOT pan out. Nevertheless, the truest test would be to see how it fares out in the wild with no checkpointing and a big valuation attached to it to attract attackers.

As to why it's so popular, yes it's innovative and leads the way in Proof of Stake, but the reality at the moment is that lots of people are willing to throw money at anything with the word "coin" thrown onto the end of it. My guess is that's the driving factor. They might as well throw it at a coin that has at least a chance of offering real and practical advantages to bitcoin. Bitcoin clones with tweaks to the average confirmation time and block reward structure are a dime a dozen.

[zoro]

it is a unique coin. the first one with PoS. i will not be surprised if it gains more popularity than LTC and BTC