I agree that we don't need to shed XPM in a negative light in the introductory video. Riecoin and Primecoin are competitors in the free market but quite like siblings mathematically.
Only siblings? "entirely new proof-of-work" ? Not recognizing that XPM inspired and laid the yellow brick road for RIC just smacks intellectual dishonesty.
"highly verified" ... well for those who care if XPM-found primes are not real primes they can run a prime test for all the XPM-found numbers and finish it in probably a matter of minutes. There are only on the order of 10 million numbers to verify. It's trivial.
Primecoin allowed small miners to find blocks which is tied to prime chains. I mined RIC a little and found that trying to find a Riecoin block is hopeless for individual miners, which makes a disappointing game for those who are interested in the math/record aspect.
I thank you for the opportunity to respond to some criticisms - there's no better way to elucidate an argument. The more I think about Riecoin, the more I want to defend it and invest. But hey, I am the most open minded person around, if you can convince me this is a bad coin I'll put my time and money elsewhere.
In response to your points:
1)Its an entirely different algorithm, nothing was built off of XPM. Was the dev inspired by earlier ideas? - Surely, but the concept of using miners to create an important mathematical byproduct is much older than XPM. Now we have a coin that does it AND is decentralized - Riecoin.
There is much more work to make a successful scientific computing cryptocurrency than having the idea and picking an algorithm. It took 4.5 years for the first of such coin to appear after Bitcoin and only a half year for the second one to show up. We see that the nut is difficult to crack but once it is cracked it is relatively easy to make a similar one.
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2)XPM miners generate false primes, RIC miners do not. Its a comment on the efficiency of the output not whether or not you can check the quality. But there may be a point here worth investigating, if both coins had equal amounts of contributors, which would put out more actual primes (after XPMs false's are removed)?
I don't see why it is a big deal. There are about 40,000 Cunningham chains found by Primecoin, with less than 10 million prime numbers. If anyone wants to do research, testing these prime candidates one by one is no big deal. The Primecoin miner network has done most of the heavy lifting by prividing a candidate set that is 99% true. Many records have been broken and these C-chains are proven true.
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3)If your concern is earning coins, you're not interested in the math, you're trying to make money. Everyone mining contributes to the discovery process whether they are rewarded or not. People don't run Seti@home to earn coins, which is why I mentioned it earlier....And if the plight of the little guy not being able to earn coins is your concern, and I agree its a problem, isn't that solvable with pools like every other coin out there?
I don't know if you have mined Primecoin solo. In the first several months, old PCs can find Primecoin blocks. For those who are concerned with math and record, it is very cool that if you can find "your own" C-chain that is a contender of the world record, and have the hash signature, time stamp, and a cool address to show it. It's just more fun.
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Finally, you've neglected to mention the most important issue here: decentralization. I like XPM and what they created, but so long as it has a centralized feature I fail to see how it can function any better as a currency than a fascist government fiat... The whole reason Bitcoin has succeeded is because trust of a 3rd party is not required for trade between individuals, the system has no back door. That's the innovation, that's what makes Bitcoin an amazing new technology- and Primecoin unfortunately lacks it. I struggle to call them siblings, to me this is just too big of a distinction - half brothers maybe.
The checkpoint in XPM is just a message broadcast mechanism that individual miners can opt out. I think it is turned off by default actually. It doesn't make a coin more centralized than an "offcial" talk thread here on bitcointal or a dedicated message board does. Don't confuse it with PPC's check point system. Sunny King has said the plan is phasing them out.
Anyway credit should be given where it is due. Riecoin is mildly interesting. Its difficulty will make the coin unpopular. Its market capitalization will suffer. There are many rare coins -- bitbars, novacoin, onecoin ... the unit price can be high but the price of many of these coins are controlled/manipulated by giant holders who got it cheap initially.
