The rate at which new projects are launched seems to be accelerating and the great thing about being interested in these protocols is Satoshi established a standard way to launch a protocol (publishing a white paper), which can be read and scrutinized by anyone in the world. Here's some essential reading if you love this stuff as much as I do:

Ethereum Yellow Paper

Steem White Paper

Augur White Paper

Filecoin White Paper

StorJ White Paper

Zcash White Paper

Urbit docs