Not sure how it could be seen as a Ponzi scheme. By definition a Ponzi scheme has to return money from its later investors to earlier investors and I don't see anything like that here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme

I don't see how B) would work in this case.

However, it could also simply be a huge pile of money getting burned, with a few useful innovations made along the way.

I would venture to say that is the most likely outcome, actually, although I prefer A) to happen, of course.