Hi schwmm, genuinely love to hear what projects are more interesting!
I am personally looking for that crypto which has the biggest growth potential in terms of offering a replacement for our banking system as I think that has biggest growth potential.
In my eyes that is BitShares, but if there is anything else like it out there I don't know about I love to hear it. It is tough to keep track of all cryptocoins!
U mentioned Bitshares is not a currency and you are right that it is unlikely we will be paying with BTS at the counter, but it offers currencies like Hero and that is being bought through BitShares, so in effect BitShares delivers the currencies.
It is a currency factory.
I agree though there are tons of good projects out there, but which other projects can deliver a full eco-banking system right now or in the future?

https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@johncobra/crypto-currency-and-ming-what-is-bitshares