Pros and cons of whitepapers

[yojodojo21]

The advantage of having whitepaper in a project is to introduce the project, it helps the investor to be clarified with the inquiries and if the investor needs to be answered with some question then they should contact admins or Developers.
the Disadvantage of Whitepaper. some of the written platform in a whitepaper doesn't seem to be true in the future, and sometimes it is used to deceive investors with some deceitful words in it. i mean as an investor reviewing and carefully Reading the WP.

I have seen some project that has Good Whitepaper and seems promising but need to invest at your own risk, I am reading some whitepaper to a certain  Project eventually, like with the icerock Mining, UBIQUICOIn, Eligma, VLB. these projects have Good Whitepaper and etc. To investors always carefully Check 7 times.

[KennethRobins]

You have to keep it simple. After you read the whitepaper you have to know:
1) Whats the problem they are solving and for whom
2) How are they going to solve it
3) Do they have the means to solve and market it (team, connections etc.)

If the whitepaper does not give you all the informations so that you can answer all those questions and give you confidence into the project, then the whitepaper is not good. And also the project is probably not good enough to invest into.

[JL421]

Pros are mainly it gives you all the necessary information of what is the goal or what's their max cap , total supply
Other important things are how are they going to use our funds and how the funds will be alloted for different purposes like development marketing
Now the cons is small yet it makes a big difference and that is most of them are copied from famous ico or they don't plan to achieve anything from it

[Pursuer]

since you posted this in trading discussion I am going to focus on that.

you only read an altcoin's whitepaper if you are interested in its technology and want to learn more about how it works and what ideas it is implementing. otherwise as a trader reading the whitepaper of an altcoin is not going to give you any worthwhile information about it. altcoins work based on hype and pump and dump. and neither of the good ones ever give you as big a profit as a pumped shitcoin can give you.

Well, if you only focus on short time hype trading it is true, whitepaper and basics won't matter. But if you also invest long term, it may show the potential of the project.

well the problem is that I don't see that many altcoins, specially the top 5 to have any good future in the long run. it will always come down real usage and majority of them have none. when they go up based on pure speculation and hype (which you may even call "pump") it is not something you want to invest long term based on it!

[@prashant]

generally it has been seen that the good ico whitepaper are not that flashy ,they are more focused on explaining the concepts and its utilities rather than eye catching text or images.it is also right as blockchain developer or programmer are not graphic artist so they mainly focus on content,and flashy whitepaper are generally scam ,there content is also stolen so it is better  to research before investing.although above reason may or may not be valid but in my experience it generally goes like this.so its better to choose from ico from ico incubator sites or do your own research before investing.

[BCSHonda]

Question for everyone, what are the signs of a good whitepaper and also signs of a bad one.

Good Sign:

1. Roadmap - there should be at least a roadmap and what the project wants to accomplished. At least a good 3 - 6 months project pipeline.
2. The team - the devs or the top management should be also has a name and a face in the Whitepaper so that we can verify if they are really legit or not.
3. Jargon - not too much technical terms, because most investors will not understand it anyways. Brief concise and straight to the point.

Bad Sign:

1. Spelling mistakes - If I found some spelling or grammar mistakes, I tend to stay away because it doesn't look professional. They are asking investors to pour money on them and yet they can't even proof read their paper
2. No teams mentioned. - very shady to me

Yeah, after reading many whitepapers It's not so hard to spot a shady/bad ones. I always skip projects that doesn't reveal details about team and advisors.

To good signs, I would also add detailed fund section and comparsion with competing projects.

since you posted this in trading discussion I am going to focus on that.

you only read an altcoin's whitepaper if you are interested in its technology and want to learn more about how it works and what ideas it is implementing. otherwise as a trader reading the whitepaper of an altcoin is not going to give you any worthwhile information about it. altcoins work based on hype and pump and dump. and neither of the good ones ever give you as big a profit as a pumped shitcoin can give you.

Well, if you only focus on short time hype trading it is true, whitepaper and basics won't matter. But if you also invest long term, it may show the potential of the project.

I think so. Whitepapers is a report or instruction by a competent authority for the purpose of helping the reader understand a problem that is bitcoin - a digital currency released in the form of software code. Open source is the most popular in the world up to the present time. This is the advantage of whitepapers. There is a small shortcoming that there are many projects to ICO bitcoin, so must learn thoroughly before investing.

[yanto@1977]

Question for everyone, what are the signs of a good whitepaper and also signs of a bad one.

Good white paper have all information about the project in every aspect with true data, this is the first ( main ) people see, it should full detail information. But you can't see only from white paper because you must see all part from the project. Besides that, white paper can't become sign to join project. Meaning see project as one not pieces, do that and you'll find the best project for you. 

[harizen]

generally it has been seen that the good ico whitepaper are not that flashy ,they are more focused on explaining the concepts and its utilities rather than eye catching text or images.it is also right as blockchain developer or programmer are not graphic artist so they mainly focus on content,and flashy whitepaper are generally scam ,there content is also stolen so it is better  to research before investing.although above reason may or may not be valid but in my experience it generally goes like this.so its better to choose from ico from ico incubator sites or do your own research before investing.

Whitepaper designed is basically not the basis. Plain or having a stunning image, doesn't matter.

In general, whitepaper is designed to have a clear content about the inside stuff of a certain project. Even a shit project have a wonderful whitepaper as no doubt, investors tend to look at these before putting a money. Roadmaps, token sale period, token used, technology etc. all are included in a good whitepaper and i=t's nice to see the content. The question here now is, is the execution will followed properly? Are those goals will really achieved in the long term?

A good and well detailed whitepaper is not really a basis that a project will be successful as like I said, even a shit project does have a good whitepaper with good content. But it can served as reference and recipe in making a good analyzation about what project will you choose.

[GoldenLad]

Question for everyone, what are the signs of a good whitepaper and also signs of a bad one.

You may not know if a white paper is good or bad becuase most developers just write what they feel that will interest the people who will invest. Even you it will interest you to know that most scam ICOs have interesting whitepaper which mostly lures investors to invest in it and at the end it ends ends up as a hoax. Though, some ICOs still act according to their whitepaper.

[Fazlurkhan.kz]

Firstly read the complete whitepaper and decide for yourself whether you find it legit or not. The signs in the whitepaper of a scam could be-

• Too promising
• Fake staff enrolled (I once saw Ryan Gosling as the ceo of a project.)
• Roadmap not practical.

And things like these.
Just research and find for yourself by communicating the team and having a word with dev, You'd eventually get to know by their response whether they're professional or not which will give you an idea about the project's future.

[buwaytress]

since you posted this in trading discussion I am going to focus on that.

you only read an altcoin's whitepaper if you are interested in its technology and want to learn more about how it works and what ideas it is implementing. otherwise as a trader reading the whitepaper of an altcoin is not going to give you any worthwhile information about it. altcoins work based on hype and pump and dump. and neither of the good ones ever give you as big a profit as a pumped shitcoin can give you.

Probably the most worthwhile point here. Anyone who purports to support a project with investment and then takes it to trading either doesn't understand what it means to back a project or doesn't understand that the technology almost always has little to do with the price of alts. Outside the precious handful of coins with actual use, everything else sits purely on speculatory value and exchanges hands only as a buys and sells.

well the problem is that I don't see that many altcoins, specially the top 5 to have any good future in the long run. it will always come down real usage and majority of them have none. when they go up based on pure speculation and hype (which you may even call "pump") it is not something you want to invest long term based on it!

Which just made me realise - I held a couple of alts that I used for the longest time without even having read a single line of its whitepaper or GitHub! In fact, other than Bitcoin, the only whitepapers/GH pages I picked up to read up till July 2017 were ICO ones.

[Indrawan77]

For me a good whitepaper is the one that explained the detail, starting from the background why the creators create the coin and what is the usage of the coin, what is the unique feature and how will the developers and users can used this feature to make the coin stand out, the detail roadmap and vision must be clear, and the most important is the whitepaper able to attract investors,  whitepaper is the first step to introduce coin so without a clear and proper explanation people wont interested

[athanz88]

Question for everyone, what are the signs of a good whitepaper and also signs of a bad one.

From my experience, these are the sign of it :

Good :
1. Detailed.
2. Simple but on point.
3. The idea of the project explained to the core.
4. Chart and images for some details.
5. Using a good contrast on color.

These are the good, while the bad is definitely the opposite of them. As we know, whitepaper is the tools to introduce the project to people, so it needs to be great, not only good. Last whitepaper i read wad VLB project , this is one example of a great whitepaper if you ask my opinion.

[royalbittinz]

A good whitepaper details everything you need to know about the company's project (why they create the coin, purpose and how it will benefits the public.)

It also entail the road map and vision of the company. 

[husencoe]

I think the good whitepaper have clearly roadmap, developer teams, base of ideas, target, and other plan for that project in future. If the whitepaper can explain their target and tecnology that can be posible tecnology in future and can can accept with logic, i think that is a good one. But, if you see some whitepaper with a lousy explanation, not clearly explane their base and target, not show developer team and roadmap, that indicated the project is bad.

[renbucs]

In my point of view a sign of goo whitepaper have a detailed roadmap of project. They have realistic methods in order to need their goal and objective of the project.

[Fedrey]

In my point of view a sign of goo whitepaper have a detailed roadmap of project. They have realistic methods in order to need their goal and objective of the project.

The fact is that I trust the entire documentation to the minimum, which the developer of the project shows. After all, it is they who provide this information, and in it you can write anything you like to attract investors.

[max fray]

White paper brings a detailed description of the scheme for solving a specific problem with the help of a specific product.
It also explains why this approach is the best for the market and is profitable for the investor.
So when you examine the WP pay your attention to the following aspects:

Problem. How relevant is it? For whom is it relevant? Is there a market behind this product?
Ideally, the solution to the problem should be as demanded as "water in Africa".

Decision. How viable is it?
Try to think as a consumer and to imagine the benefit from the product.

Product. Is the MVP or beta version running? Are there any product modules ready? If not, why?
If the project has just begun developing its own solution, it may have faster competitors.

Value. What is the difference between the product (or a service) from the analogues? What does the team know about their competitors? Does it "hack" the market, offering completely new advantages?

Prospects. How do the ambitions and stage of the project correlate with the declared amounts of investment? How well does the team imagine the marketing strategy? What development scenarios does it offer?

Token. How is the token designed? What can you exchange it for? How and what operations can be carried out with it? Who and why will buy the token? Is it valuable?

Conditions. How many coins are emitted? What percentage of tokens are allocated to the main team? How many of them go to the bounty?

[sonic22]

I'm mostly involved in coins, not ICOs. To me, the whitepaper should contain all technical stuff about the coin I'm looking at. New technologies implemented, problems workaround, calculations etc. Roadmap I prefer to view separately from the whitepaper.

[sud]

since you posted this in trading discussion I am going to focus on that.

you only read an altcoin's whitepaper if you are interested in its technology and want to learn more about how it works and what ideas it is implementing. otherwise as a trader reading the whitepaper of an altcoin is not going to give you any worthwhile information about it. altcoins work based on hype and pump and dump. and neither of the good ones ever give you as big a profit as a pumped shitcoin can give you.

Well, if you only focus on short time hype trading it is true, whitepaper and basics won't matter. But if you also invest long term, it may show the potential of the project.

well the problem is that I don't see that many altcoins, specially the top 5 to have any good future in the long run. it will always come down real usage and majority of them have none. when they go up based on pure speculation and hype (which you may even call "pump") it is not something you want to invest long term based on it!

That is true, even top 10 may be too narrow to find any altcoin with real world usage. Maybe in top 50 you could find a few projects which have a chance to still be relevant in a year or two. The thing is whitepaper can only show if the team has good idea, vision and is capable to develop a product, but it doesn't guarantee it will happen.