Bitcoin Forum

Whitepaper and road mad are nice and good things for a project. They tell you what is to be expected of in project especially if you are an investor. But then scam issues sprung up, recognizing the power and influence of whitepaper and road, came in and capitalised on it to defraud a lot of investors

And now it becomes difficult to trust whitepaper and road map, but it wasn't like that from the beginning.

The solution I presume now; let’s take whitepaper to tell us what the project devs aim to achieve; don’t use whitepaper as a reason for investment.

This has become the order of the day where projects provide measurable and admirable whitepaper with good prospect and development but they end up as runaway scam or don’t develop the project

Which is why investors has too look beyond whitepaper and do more research

The whitepaper that was once revered as a true representation of a project mission, technology, goals and roadmap is now a haven for utter garbage, lies and fake promises. These days, project fabricate anything constructive just to get people's attention with the aim of misleading them into buying some use project tokens. Unfortunately, this is now the make up of most upcoming projects.

The whitepaper and roadmap are important, but we can't judge the project is good or not only from these two things.

many scam projects that have a whitepaper are very good, all the explanations that are there are really real. but in the end it never existed. so we shouldn't be easily affected by this.

The whitepaper is only for complementary purposes. how good the whitepaper was when the project was released, in the end after the ICO was finished no one cared about it. maybe you disagree about this, but in reality no one reads the whitepaper after the project is finished with ico and the token listing on the market. because everyone is only interested in prices and speculation. no one really cares about what the project will do.

White ketas is also important for a project because it is written in the initial white paper and future goals, but first it was very necessary for investors but for now it is not really believed because many failed the ICO.

It is necessary to study more information about the project, so as not to be deceived. Get acquainted not only with white paper, but with the team in particular: find them in popular networks, ask them questions directly. Look how well the site is made. Check the code of the token, coin, smart contract, the development of code. These points will answer the most important question about investment.

I think just fraudsters are developing. They already lack a simple website and ads. Now investors are considering all the details very carefully. That means they have to do the paperwork well. That is why the situation is now.

At least by going through the whitepaper, one will be able to know the intention of the team about the project and thd capacity of the team but one need to do more than that. One needs to do more findings about the core team and read expert review about the project .

It is getting very difficult to analyses a project now, most of these scam have studied the space, understand what investors are looking for and his under all these fancy talk, white-paper, road-map, Advisors, Partnership etc to sway investors to invest in their project and when they have your money, nothing is heard from them. We need to look a the team capacity to deliver on their promises when analyzing ICO project

I do not think that we should blame whitepapers or roadmaps for scams because it generally depends on the intentions of the persons behind the project for example we have seen vast numbers of mining ico scams where it was easy to scam investors by putting up attractive monthly returns figures and luring innocent people in hope of lifetime passive income. I do not think there is an easy way out we just have to be more and more vigilant before investing in an ico.

it is now generally difficult to build on any factors when we studying a project. now even a technical document cannot indicate that the project will not be a scam

Road maps and whitepapers now aren't really the basis if the project is good or not. Yes, they were different from the beginning and those really are a big deal for the projects that were selling themselves. But now, we're on the different scenario and most of these aren't really good enough to convince most of the investors. Investors now are looking if the project does really have plan to continue its proposal and real usage so that they can have that assessment, these kind of projects can stay longer.

I may be a bit orthodox, but I see a White Paper document as a strictly technical document describing a protocol or presenting a solution for a problem (and scientifically proving it), using a rigorous formatting simmilar to an achademic thesis. Far different from most of the "White Papers" made by many projects there, which are on reality just a shiny slides show converted on PDF trying to sell their idea (and product, of course).

Very correct. Many projects can create an outstanding well-written whitepaper but the truth is, there's really nothing in it. Just to attract users. So a smart investor knows that he should study beyond wp, look for other facts related to the project. Check for the viability of their project or if they have working product, much better.

Lots of white paper for some projects are just copy and paste thereby making it look like a scam from the developers of projects  gone are those days whereby white paper says a lot about a project but seriously as for now they are just crap they don't follow the white papers because it's copy and paste

Whitepaper is now use by those scammers to attract investors and fall for their tricks so don't just rely on the Whitepaper but also check the background of team members and if they are capable of bringing the idea into life.

WP and road map is only one thing we have to look at when doing our research.  Fancy WP does not mean anything if they do not deliver on their promises. Still, it contains many important information about the project goals and vision.

it is very important to read white paper in an ico project because on white paper all there is about the vision and mission of the project so that investors are more confident to invest.

A good investors would always use white paper as a tool to know more about the the project. Most times, the whitepaper gives clue on the questions to ask the team of the project and could help to know their intentions.
This is why every good white paper must have a disclaimer.

The whitepaper and roadmap are important tools of any project

But gone are the days of their reliability; because it does not determine whether a project is worth investing or not
As an investor; you have to look beyond the whitepaper doc and roadmap

It all depends on the development team in my opinion, before reading the whitepaper I always see the development team, whether the project team is strong enough to run this project or they are just a scammer hiding behind this project. So always analyze the project before following it, be a smart people

Yes I'm tired of going through countless whitepapers to fish out the good projects and I've even seen few that copied from other projects ,we need to be more careful there are too many fake projects nowadays

White paper is a normal situation for projects, if you constantly use analysis, then you should understand that such options in general have good successful opportunities for normal project selection.

Yeah, of course. There are no reasons on why you must take and see the whitepaper first. But, to understand the project, you have to firstly read the whole whitepaper so you will know the purpose of the project.

A whitepaper used to be viewed as an important document and many big projects like Boscoin and Hacken had whitepapers explaining the details of their project and the information shared was useful to the investors but now many ICOs just share garbage in their whitepapers and nobody cares to read them. Wise investors also are not paying attention to these details and they just care about selling their coins at a higher rate, nothing else like the future of the project and so on.

A good project that aims to collect big money, must have a great written whitepaper, but it is not the most important part of each ICO. In my opinion, a good ICO should always have at least an MVP before the token sale launch.

You're absolutely right but I think this all depends on individual's experience in thr industry. As for me if I go through a whitepaper and the details of a project team, my instint will tell me if the project is fake or real, so whitepaper is still a very big thing for those who knows how to decode scams through it.

Then you need a smarter way to read, understand and detect the best projects from their whitepaper
You only have to ensure the team follows your same idea before you cash out and miss out

There are actually strange experiences from different corner of cryptocurrency in recent times, but we understand the readings differently, personally, I don't know how to study it accurately, I have always thought I knew until I have fallen for very poor projects, which make me come down to believe in those who could understand it better.

Its a very difficult to find good bounty. Its a true that so many scam ICO has good whitepaper and good roadmap but the end they run. As investor do not depend only two things.

I agree with you; dependency on only whitepaper isn’t good enough
It doesn’t make a project last longer or fulfil their intending technological promise

We need guile foresight and also a bit a luck to get 50% investment decisions right always

Well most of whitepapers of new coins are just write to be writed and some of projects fails even if team try to do something, more and more people lose trust on new project because in past more was exitscam and people lose money and time.

Whitepaper is the main document to describe a certain project purpose and idea but too many scam projects creating plagiarized whitepaper, so before we invest or engage in some projects we need to check the whitepaper and of course if it has a real team, we need to investigate this matters.

because currently looking for a really good ico project is very difficult, on white paper even though all the project designs are listed there but at the end of the ico it can disappear somewhere.

With so much abuse of the space by scammers and inexperience team members, a whitepaper alone does very little to convincing potential investors on the ingenuity of a project. A great whitepaper without a skilled team with integrity to follow through is worthless. Many whitepaper are full of outrageous claims

Whitepaper itself couldn't not be trusted to put your investment, you need to do other research beside the whitepaper to see whether the investment is scam or not, whitepaper will give you the idea of the project and what can you expect from the project, but nowadays you can buy the whitepaper or asked someone to create the whitepaper, so it can be the source of information for you to do deeper research

Any good writer with a little knowledge about technical aspects of a project can write a good whitepaper and road map. Anyone can easily do it. But a good whitepaper does not make a legit project. A project is only legit if the developer really intended to make the project as stated in the roadmap and whitepaper. So instead on looking on the whitepaper, investors should research the individuals involved in the project. Are they real? Can they deliver?

But first want to understand about a project that actually does what they wrote in the whitepaper. You have to read it like that, to know if they are doing right or wrong with what is committed. It is a quick way for you to make investment decisions

A lot of scam developers discovered in 2018 that they could get through once they had a well crafted WP even without any tangible project. That was how they got a lot of us deceived with their vices. These days the WP  truly doesn't mean a thing. For me, I don't bother going through a WP because I don't even do ICOs anymore. I am on the sidelines watching what goes on until a project is listed on credible exchanges before I buy in.

It is still the same thing mate, the reason why most investors pick up a white paper up is not just to read as newspaper, it is strictly with the intention of investing, so if they look out for whatever you ask them to look at for, it is still to decide whether to invest or not. So, when we use the whitepaper to check what the project aim to achieve, it will still be part of what will assist in deciding our investment before moving in to further research that will finally make us to conclude if the project is worth investing in or not.

I agree that the road map and white paper are important factors,but I, as an investor, try to rely not only on them and draw my conclusions on other criteria.

From another angle, the whitepaper document has become just an ordinary figure head
No body cares about it anymore

Either good whitepaper or fake whitepaper
It does not guarantee the success of projects anymore

You are right, we cannot solely rely on these whitepaper any more, even if the whitepaper discloses what such project aim to achieve and its objective, it might still be all lies as they just do that to convince people into investing, although it is not all whitepaper that does this, we still have lots of whitepapers in the market that I have seen what the projects is all about and could vouch for it.

Using whitepaper, we should still be able to have the discernment spirit, no matter how promising the coin may look.
We need to start looking for something else that is other than whitepaper that could help conclude on the genuinely of the project and of the developers too.

There are other ways to determine if the project is scam. If the project is a planned scam, they have planned the whitepaper as well, so you can't really depend on that. But finding irregularities or vague plans is a good way to spot scams.

Usually the popularist selling points are the red flag for me, also the team/advisors need to have solid reasons to be in their places and they need to be real persons with the history you can google up.

Everytime I invest in an ICO, I read the whitepaper of it and see if it is realistic that they can attain what they put in it for the span of time that they set. If I think that it is not attainable, then I would assume that it is a scam already and I am not putting my money there anymore.

Good investment idea but what’s your plan B ?
I mean a situation whereby the whitepaper is realistic and the project ends up at loss ?

There is need to be smarter than the inevitable

I believe this is good idea from you; what other factors do you draw your conclusions from?
Is it from the generated hypes ? Or partnership deals ?

Do inform more; thanks

Whitepapers these days has became total nonsense, it the past whitepaper is all you need to figure out how true a project is but gone are those days now, the new style is to do better researches  on the teams to find out if they are real, I did that on a project teams and I find out that they have fake advisor with even fake name.

Honestly i am too lazy to read all pages in the whitepaper of project, it usually very time consuming.
Even how good is the whitepaper won't guarantee the ICO is real and not fraud scam project.
But in the whitepaper we can know what is the project advantages from other existing projects.

I agree with you. To check the project you need to check many parameters, the more you learn the better.

There is one common thing that scammers also do their whitepaper- they plagiarise most of the times.
If you are the type that reads white paper, you would have been conversant with lots of them and by the time you see a plagiarized  white paper, you would know.
Scammers are most time found guilty in this area.

Considering whitepaper to invest is a good thing because it encapsulate all that the project entails but the story is different now that we have major fake project and now I'll suggest studying the team is more important than the Whitepaper, devs that release their identity and it can be verified should be applauded and tells potential investors they're are not scammers

You cant really just anything any more going to have to check out the code yourself to figure out if a project is good.
really no other way and even then you still have the devs to worry about

White paper is just a declaration of intent of the project developers. The roadmap is an approximate timeline for the implementation of the planned stages of the project.
As my experience shows, these documents are, as a rule, followed and executed rarely and changes are often made there.

If you scrutinize closely the available whitepaper and roadmap for each project launched, you will easily identify who is putting their time and effort on creating such document. If you will see only few pages with very generic content, the probability that a project is done in a rush manner is very high. It has high likelihood that they will not develop their platform. Whereas, a project with serious intent will give you a detailed whitepaper and very comprehensive items on their roadmap. They will answer your questions in a satisfactory manner as well, because they know what they are doing.

But if you see a roadmap discussing only the creation of wallets, listing in exchanges, listing in ranking sites, marketing - high chance that this will be another pump and dump story, or just dumping of dev's coins. Stay away from this type of project.

Yes, I also think that better to look a prev. work's of team, how known are they and projects which they worked on. White paper - only paper. It not show level of trust for the team from community side.

Unfortunately, many projects misused WP and roadmap to attract investors in the past. We always have to check how the project team is delivering on their promises on the project development.

because many projects were scamned last year so we have to be more mobile and sensitive before investing in projects or participating in the project's bounty.

If you know how to create a seemingly feasible whitepaper and roadmap, you are good to go. If you are a potential investor, better look for working product with many users in it. I have seen well-written whitepapers but ended up not successful with their plans. So this is not the ultimate factor to consider when investing a project.

Whitepaper have many uses. One of them is it's bring being used to explain how their platform will work and how significant it is for the investors or even to other people who are wether in crypto or not. It's still better to read whitepaper before investing; this can be also be used to indentify is a project is a scam or not.

there was a time where an whitepaper wasnt painted
and the roadmap doesnt contains 5 steps ..
1.  publish sourcecode
2. publish  binary
3.  mining pool
4.  exchange
5. IOS Wallet   "happend never"

I believe that white paper is a very weak proof of the financial success of the project. I think that whitepaper will not be able to protect investors and their investments in the project. There is nothing difficult not to follow whitepaper because it's regular paper not having any legal force. It's just information about what the team is raising money for.

Scammers have found ways to make every single aspect that we could use to determine the quality of a project into nothing more than useless stuff, when so many of the whitepapers are plagiarized or written by the same people that take that as an occupation then reading it becomes a waste of time, the first thing you need to do is to see if the devs are real, if they are then you can analyze the project otherwise forget about it.

I remember falling for decorative whitepapers in time past.. The way scammers have perforated the system today makes it gullible for one to believe in whitepapers and some are literally products of copy and paste  .

Agreed, white paper is a key factor for ICO at the same time people will think wisely about the rules and regulations which has been clearly mentioned in it Well I personally feel like white paper is like a everything like good specification. This is not to avoid any updates on the market.

Well rightly I would say there’s are still decorative white papers and even fake teams
Scammers have upgraded their pranks and it’s better to be a good reader and facts finder to make the right trades always and everytime

Maybe what you meant is "Don't let the announcement or the release of whitepaper as a reason for investment". I remember those days when a mere announcement for WP release would cause an instant pump. A few made some money on that while many lost due to the immediate dumping.

having said that, there is no way that you're going to invest in any project without reading the whitepaper. You'll have to rely on it somehow.

I have long ago made the decision not to pay attention to the qualitative information about the projects.  In any case, a full-fledged analysis of the project is not enough for 100% of the result and you still can not be sure of good prospects.  I have repeatedly encountered such projects, in which everything was very well written and it’s impossible to find dark spots behind the team, but in the end it turned out to be a scam.

Yes, look beyond the presentations. Having a well written whitepaper and team does not necessarily equate to a project being legit. But still, you cannot simply invest w/o checking the WP

Sometimes we don't read whitepaper anymore because it would be a waste of time when later on after reading we discover the team's profile are fake. Can you imagine how much time wasted reading more than 20 pages of the whitepaper promising  development and partnerships to big companies in the industry only to find out later on a scambuster reveal whitepaper was actually plagiarized?

but how can you determine the accuracy and authenticity of the information?  Each time the worker will provide that information in order to attract more investors or interested people.  But with respect to new projects, there are more and more new issues, in order to avoid fraud in relation to itself and its funds.

I personally start reading the whitepaper only after studying the team and after studying the company registration. technical document easy to write

Studying a new project to invest, you need to pay attention to everything. Do not be lazy, read the documents qualitatively - your earnings depend on it. Also, carefully review all team members and advisers.

In general, there is no need to invest in new projects that do not have a finished product and who do not have support from large exchanges or funds.
They all carry great risks that are not compensated by anything. Big risks usually have to carry a greater opportunity to earn, but with the onset of a bear market, the opportunity to earn is gone, but the risks remain.

I also went precede to research a team and products rather than having to read the whole roadmap and others document ,if the team is genuine and has full trust I don't must to read other documents ,must be see the road map after researching the team and that is enough to make me invest in project
if there are indications of deviation I will go from there

Whitepaper and road map were never guarantee for anything, it is just a written commitment from the dev team what they want to achieve in a defined time frame. Only time will tell if they will deliver on promises.

The whitepaper has simply become a situation of two sides

It is either unique and followed to achieve a good result; or it is simply manipulated and used to defraud freebie investors who join such icos

It’s literally up to you to dyor and be with the best facts

Lol, this is still fair
There are projects that edit their whitepaper at over 2 times even before the pre sale
It has become a joke recently

If you are still depending on whitepapers and road maps for you activities then its a pity. They come up with the most captivating whitepapers and almost there road maps just to lure people into throwing the hard earned money into fake projects. I no longer follow whitepapers as they appear more deceitful rather than a true procedure or guide.

This is the simple truth; 98% projects have a mere paper useful whitepaper
THat would not be implemented

So we need to discover. New research strategy

Whitepaper and roadmap are indeed good for seeing the plans and bridges of the project, but we should not only focus on both because the roadmap also sometimes does not go according to plan. We also need to look at solid team and community performance.

I think the problem is that few of us are specialists who can understand whitepaper and check its content. For most, it is enough to see a detailed description and some formulas to decide that this is a quality project. We need an organization that can professionally evaluate whitepaper and give an expert assessment.