Yes it was. The github for Peercoin was forked like 200 or 300 times by every new coin stupid pump and dump altcoin that got created. The problem is, most of them didn't even know how proof of stake worked.

(Which is embarassing, but that is how many dumb coins exist)

Peercoin is the first, and the best at what it does... The rest of them are just "copycat coins, with poor execution"

Peercoin isn't just a proof-of-concept, it's a real coin that has stood the test of ages and is still functional to this day.

As Bitcoin scales poorly (and it does), Peercoin is ready to pick up some of that slack.