I keep hearing it's dead, and it might be. But the mining reward has recently changed, along with new wallet software.
Seems they are doing a lot of work on the back-end as well. Why would you quietly be working on a project... if it were completely dead.
If they were just setting up a scam.. I would expect a whole lot of hype, and posts.. a few videos.. some pictures.. more rumors of sites offering 1 gram per coin .. or at least a BJ.
As far as sync goes, for a new wallet.. it sucks
I am sharing my blocks folder via a torrent:
https://youtu.be/s2Ee0coxhNc (in the video description)
let me know if you have problems downloading.
Remember, never trust anything from the internet, specially something from a Torrent from some strange guy on the internet.
But I am uploading it anyways.