Bitcoin Forum

When reviewing white papers from new ICOs, what do you pay the most attention to?

I am still learning, so not yet investing in ICOs, but I want to learn what are the most important things to look for in the white paper?

I have read a lot about how to spot scammers, so my question is more directed towards: How do I know is a good project?

Thank you all in advance!

Kudos to wanting to learn as much as you can! The best protection against scams lies with the investors' due diligence.

There are many ways to figure out which projects are good and which projects are great.

For me personally, I will ask myself these questions first.

1) Will I use this product?
2) Am I interested to learn more?
3) Will it help bring Crypto or Blockchain to non-crypto investors/users?

Then, of course, we shall proceed with reading the actual whitepaper.

I will look out first:

1) The team
The experience of the team matters quite a lot. And where their true strengths lie. Just an example, Justin Sun is a fantastic marketing wizard and thus, he is able to secure these partnerships and create the hype for TRX. Vitalik Buterin is a technical wizard, with a figurehead like him, Ethereum has a strong technical advantage. That sort of things. Steve Jobs and Apple. Elon Musk and Tesla/SpaceX. Jack Ma and Alibaba. (Not advocating these companies. They are just examples).

2) If available, business model.
How will the project bring revenue and profits? During a bear market when ICO contributions like BTC and ETH lose value, how can a company sustain in the market? Revenue makes a company tick. :)

Hope this helps somehow! It is a long topic for sure.

+1 The only thing that I would added is: Is it achievable for the team. You read sometimes that crazy projects and what they want to achieve it is nearly impossible for the team. If they can not achieve the roadmap/whitepaper it probely gonna flop.

I'm not giving advice here and nothing against some of the great projects that may be sprouting up but if I were to invest in an ICO again, I would wait until just after it comes out on the first exchange or maybe way after and most of them tank below ICO price.

Sometimes reviewing the whitepaper alone is not enough to know if the project will be a success or scam in the near future. Whitepaper can be promising at first but when the crowdsale has been concluded, the project is now getting inactive little by little the result is the token will become shitcoin.

But here are some things that needs to be examined in a whitepaper as it will help bounty hunters and ico investors choose project carefully.

1. Team is the most important- I remember joining in a bounty campaign that turns out to be a scam. That ICO reallt has no brilliant story about the team behind their project even in their website. Furthermore, the team must also know what they are talking about their project. They should have a definite experience in their own field as it is the most crucial aspect when launching an ICO.

2. They should have a well planned roadmap. And the whitepaper must indicate where the funds goes after the main sale.

There are just my own points when reading a whitepaper.

I think we should focus on their solutions, advantages and disadvantages, and how to profit to users who invest to their project. Sometimes, their team is also important to make a successful project. Maybe they have an old idea but their team is solid, they will succeed in near future.

The team members of the project should have Linkedin accounts. You should be able to see what they have worked on previously and that way eliminate the risk.

If you are looking for a whitepaper on its own you really will not find anything as a good faked out whitepaper will not be an obvious scam, to start with you need to have a lot of experience on hunting down red flags for forged sentences, stock photos for their teams, as well as used Infographics stolen from other whitepapers. To get my point detecting a whitepaper as a scam is always about looking on outside sources and it will really help if you have the experience and knowledge about previous whitepapers of ICOs.

The white paper of any project is the document that tell you all about the project and how the project intends to translate into success and deliver superior returns to investors. You have to pay particular attention to the team. Make sure that they are exactly what they claim to be and have relevant experience. Check the road map and coin distribution. Find out if the team allocated too much to itself. Check the product they intend to offer as well as the cost per token and total coins.

I guess it's similar to any other investment you might consider, so obviously you should be convinced by the project - check if the idea makes sense in the long-run and if it's actually feasible. In the next step, try to look for transparency. Most likely, not all information will be published (if that is the case, i.e. too much information and/or confidential data is published, be careful I'd say!), so look for a good team and advisors and if it's transparent. It's good if you find advisors who were already part of other successful ICOs. These are the most important points at first glance in my opinion.

The purpose of ICO'S Whitepaper is to inspire trust and create legitimacy in the minds of investors.it gives clarity to the ico you are going to enter in. Reading whitepaper can be also a signal if the project is legit or not which is very essential before entering this kind of investment. It also shows the team behind the project and also their track record. It also contains the purpose of the project which should be considered in ico world.

Nice contributions so far, it will really go a long way

Wow, this is INCREDIBLE feedback! Thank you all so much for your contribution and ideas on this topic!

Thank you for the detailed explanation! Super valuable info here :)

+1 on your input as well. Yes, completely agree! :D The more ambitious the project, the longer time it will/should take for it to be fulfilled. There are some companies that are very upfront about their timelines, giving years as deadlines. Though everyone here probably knows, Crypto is an emotional FOMO-based market so price tends to supersede the promise of a company. Which is perhaps the cause of massive volatility. Game of patience. :P

When you read whitepaper of any ico you should focus on their feasibility, their roadmap, team members and concept of their project.

Before i look to whitepapers i go first to their website and examine its appearance , advisor and team members because reading the whitepaper is a waste of time it itends to take people attention and looks it person so people can easily deceive

In my way, the first thing I see is the team. I prefer the team that have clearly information. The next is partner and advisor. Researching about their partner. This is useful information. And the last, what product they aim to target and Do they have MVP?

as people said before you should look for a solid product with real use case.
if you see a white paper talking about easy profits it's probably a scam.

you can also checkout their bounty and project managers, find out projects the have handled in the past. Trusted project or  bounty managers with not risk their integrity with fraudulent projects.

From a white paper, you will see what the project is all about, the project team, how they intend to achieve the task ahead, how long it will take them to achieve it, the soft and hard cap for the project, the target market and expected profit. You must pay attention to all of these and make sure they are consistent. Check if the project can succeed by going through their calculations, allocations and competitors.