Bitcoin Forum

How many of you have actually read even a single white paper? Not many? But still every ICO has them. Why?

Read whole article here:

https://medium.com/@filip.poutintsev/why-do-you-need-a-white-paper-65db3ac2e483

What's your though on the White Papers? How useful you see them?

For me the answer is simple. I CAN'T invest in a project blindly. I must know what the plan is and what the timeframe of the roadmap is. If there was no whitepaper i would be better blindly throwing darts at a board with tickers on it

Projects can explain the same things on their website, it doesn't matter where this information is, for as long as it is somewhere. In my opinion white papers are little too old-school for ICOs.

In my opinion that the whitepaper will contain more explanation and further detail regarding what will be the target of the platform. I guess for the technical reason and explanation. It looks like the whitepaper just like a proposal to the investor at this time. As you can see so many investors are requesting a proper whitepaper.

If the developers of an ICO can't be bothered to write a white paper or aren't technically skilled enough to write one, I'm not giving them a penny!

True not everyone reads whitepapers but they are still essential in my view. They don't need to be 100s of pages but they do need to give some detail.

Yes, initial coin offerings should have a whitepaper because investors is looking for the white paper and they are finding the concept of a coin or token if it's a good to invest.

When I'm reading a whitepaper I'm looking only for the important details of a whitepaper. Because if you read the whole whitepaper of every project you will spend a lot of your time.

Reading the White Paper should be a must for all the people who want to invest their money in an ICO.
This is why the translation share in bounties rises to 10-15% of the whole bounty tokens.
It's not enough following tips or rumors for an investment, if you don't know what the company intents to do with your money.
Is there a plan? Do they follow any regulation of any country? Who are the members of the team?
So don't invest your money if the WP doesn't exist or you think it is not clear their intention.

Reading a whitepaper is vital if you don't want to get scammed. ICO ratings in websites like icobench and so on are sometimes manipulated or even payed for. So don't rely only on those ratings.
Website with nice graphic and design can fool you into thinking that a project is legit and it has many professional people behind it, but maybe the "team" are just web designers who created nice website, while they don't have much knowledge on other fields. Whitepaper usually reveals if there are actually any experts in the team and what is their business plan and so on.

Are you asking because you genuinely don't understand the purpose of a white paper? White papers are used to explain what the project is about. I would hope that everyone on this website would have at least have read the original whitepaper for Bitcoin. That would seem at the bare minimum, foundational.

Every ICO has a whitepaper, because it is what paved the way for Bitcoin and they believe it can do the same for them if they copy the "roadmap". Most ICOs whitepaper is completely fluff and rhetoric, whereas a useful whitepaper will explain the innovation and usefulness of the project/technology.

A white paper is an essential part of an ICO by the project team, It explains all the necessary use of the token/coin they are going to launch. Like what is the current problem? How can this token solve the specific problem? How can the token be used in practical life and in their own ecosystem? Further, it also explains the complete future roadmap that how and when a specific task of that project will be completed as time elapsed. Details of a team are also mentioned who are going to work on that project. You can consider white paper as a programme/draft which is needed by the investor to think why they should invest in the project. Basically, You can't get any investor without proper presentation of your project.

I'm sure there are people buying ICOs without reading the white paper and buying into an ICO without one. But I personally always read the white paper. If there isn't one, I move on.

Because for me whitepaper tells everything about the project that is why we should be looking to these whitepapers when we are researching every detail of the ICO is in its whitepaper,that is why we shouldnt be take it for granted one wrong detail in a whitepaper could mean everything,remember most of the ICOs nowadays are scams which is why we should be thoroughly looking to it.

Most of the important thing in every ICO is the whitepaper,because you could say if that ICO doesnt have any good future,as it should be well written one wrong detail or lack of information can be the reason why we shouldnt be investing,it is the main thing that we should be knowing if we are planning to invest to these new projects.

Whitepaper is very important for every investor. You can see what exactly is the project.

Whitepaper means Detail about project in one book, it is just like that. now come on your question's answer.
We know legit ICO is entity in particular country, to raise the fund they need investors. for attracting the investors they need to give them information about project. whitepaper is just like a portfolio of the company it involves future planning of the company.

White paper is definitely important for me because I rely on the white paper to understand what is the project trying to deliver. It has the most important information. I rather the project don’t have a website than white paper.

I think that white paper is a powerful marketing tool and the attractiveness of the project for possible investors depends on its quality and accessibility for the average person. But not always its role becomes crucial, the idea and innovation of the project is in the first place among the many selection criteria.

First and foremost let me tell you that what these ICO are offering is trust less contracts, that in itself is a big problem and actually makes no sense, you are investing for an idea and most of the time that wont work, keeping aside that, if you find a good project that attracts you, you need to read carefully their white paper and make an assessment whether it is feasible as they say and if you think that has a good theoretical purpose, then you can invest in it, another thing is that, even thought the white paper is attractive they might not fulfill what they set out to be, over all it is a big gamble. ;)

Because whitepapers serves as the heart of these ICOs,if a whitepaper isnt well writen surely we shouldnt be investing to these projects,one wrong word or detail in the whitepaper could mean everything,we shouldnt be looking to other things because whitepaper could tell us the project's future,because most of the scam ICOs doesnt have good whitepapers.

Every good investors read a white paper before invest

indeed a small mistake before buying ICO is to forget reading the white paper, but it will help ICO participants to better follow it. most people put it aside so that there is a vacuum of understanding of ICO itself.

Of course,ICOs should have good whitepaper because it tells the whole story iof each project,the vision and its potential poor whitepaper will result into poor investments if you arent reading whitepapers and you dont understand what you should have you arent going to have successful ICO investments as whitepaper is the most important thing that an iCO should have.

thank you for the article.
I did not read the white paper oftenly, but I think it's still very important.
cause white paper contain detail information about the project, for anyone who want to invest sireously.

It's a very interesting question, but most likely it is necessary for investors to clearly understand what this project will do at all and what it is doing now, what the project aims at and how it looks at the problem, a lot of useful things are written in white paper, but more often just a scam.

Yes,every single ICO should have good whitepaper or the ICO wont have success,because it tells everything about the project as the investors are looking from redflags these ICOs are going to fail as soon as these investors find out theres something wrong in the whitepaper even if the team is legit or the project itself,it is critical to most of the invetors.

Well I think without Whitepaper we can see more scams more than even now I guess, because now Whitepaper is like a business plan. Without white paper ICO can do anything because you can't say what is right and what is wrong. There are road map on WP and you can check does team do their work properly or not. People say "on their whitepaper" It's like when you're going for some place but don't know where are you going? It's a nightmare for a traveler here is the same just in crypto.

In the White paper studied the project information and justification of output on ICO. What ensures future profits for investors? Detailed business plan of the project and necessary technical details. Less buzzwords, more numbers.

it is in white documents that the founders of block projects try to convey the essence of their efforts to the target audience. This format is best suited to tell a wide audience about something new, complex and not entirely understandable. But I do not always learn white paper before buying coins.

All of the ICOs should have their own whitepapers,because it tells the whole story by just reading it,the whole project's future will be in the whitepaper,technically those ICOs which has good whitepaper has more chances of success than those ICOs which has poor ICOs because most of the investors wont invest to those ICOs which has poor writen whitepapaers.

I think white paper is the most important part of any ICO, because there are rules and procedures contained to follow ICO, someone will get lost if you do not read the white paper and cause failure in ICO.

Yes I agree ICO need the white paper to give some real value. Normal people don't read it but real investors do. They analyse it and the look for every red flag that they can spot. It is great tool for finding a good ico.

 White papers are are the most important part of any project one might be interested in investing in. They are a rich source of information, almost every detail on the ICO Project, form the plan to the development team is contained in the white paper,  an ICO without a properly presented white paper is as good as failed

Why are people linking their own articles and self promoting, is this even acceptable. As for people not reading whitepaper, how and on what basis do you assume it to be so. I think whitepapers are essential because they become the mouthpiece of any ico.

First of all, not every ICO has a whitepaper, but surely if this is the case, it is better to stay away from the project. As for whitepapers, I don't read them, but I do skim them to get the main plot, sort of. Understanding the details of how icos work is mainly too hard for me, as I am not even a programmer. Oh. and the article on Medium explains that they are written in such a complicated manner on purpose.
I think that diving into the details of the whitepaper is not only hard, but also useless, since most of people will or will not invest in the project without this knowledge, so you knowing more than top investors wouldn't be of much help with analyzing the project's economic potential.

For me the reason is obvious - to explain in paper what did they do, and what they (devs) want to achieve, or acomplish.

Of course, a white paper is needed because investors need to understand the ICO projects they invest in. A white paper can reveal a lot of useful information.

Should have a document with answers to all related questions, its like a passport for the project.. Be careful and don't mess If they ICO even don't have a whitepaper

Like what, i feel reading those won't help. But of course it will (because it's there), but i'm wondering how useful information that whitepaper hold. As a member who joins bounty, will the time i read through those be worth it? I mean, i just try to join the bounty as long as ICObench gave a high score to it and the short description of the project is plausible at the same time interesting (could be a potential boom in the market).

I'm a bounty hunter and always read the white paper of the project that I'm going to promote.

White paper is mostly being attached on every bounty campaign, and it would also attract to every people who wants to join on their business projects, and it was stated there on white paper on how their project really good by way of reading and accessing on white paper we can notice how really the bounty campaign having a good project.

Whole description of the project, its concept should be reflected somewhere, so the whitepaper is the document providing information, which is necessary for investment.