I would love Tezos as a small $4 million experiment in governance. I don't buy their thesis on why their structure is necessary, but I'm willing to wait and see...but at the insane valuation they're going to have, it is hard to imagine it being a long term success.
I like QRL as a small, $4 million experiment using a new blockchain.
Experiment all you want. the game theory is pretty clear.
Research needs to be on:
PoS - nothing at stake problem and long range attacks
Sharding - the pinnacle scaling solution. Many problems hinging on unknown unknowns.