What is interesting about the Staking projects is that it is the first model on the cryptocurrency sphere that bring yeld as incentive of investing on a cryptocurrency.

It's still too soon to predict how each project will develop, but its totally worth to watch closely how they evolve. Also:

with Tezos requiring a minimum investment of $17,000 at current rates.

That is not true. On Tezos (as in other chains), this minimum investment is only needed if you want to implement a 'baker'(how masternodes are called on Tezos chain), but using your stake to vote on a 'baker' you get a share of the masternode profits.

At the end, there is no minimum to 'stake' on tezos, but i saw recommendations of having at least 1 XTZ for the staking be worth..