What is a whitepaper?
- Author
- CRYPTO PORT Editorial
- Published
- Updated
- Reading time
- 4 min
In short
A whitepaper is a project's own document describing how its technology works, what it is for, and how its token is distributed. No third party vets it and it goes through no approval process, so reading one means separating verifiable claims from aspiration.
Key points
- A document written by the project itself
- Neither reviewed nor approved by any authority
- Token allocation and emission schedule matter most
- Whether it was actually built must be checked separately
Definition
A technical document published by a crypto project setting out the problem it addresses, its mechanism, and its token design.
Bitcoin's 2008 whitepaper was a nine-page paper explaining how to prevent double spending without an administrator. Countless projects have since published documents in the same format, varying enormously in length and rigour.
The first thing worth reading closely is token allocation: how much of the supply goes to the team and early backers, and when it unlocks. The second is whether the described mechanism can be observed working — in a public repository, or on a block explorer.
What a whitepaper is not is evidence of review. Documents copied almost verbatim from other projects exist, as do papers describing features that were never built. The document's existence proves nothing about the project's credibility.
Watch out for
- · A whitepaper is not evidence that anything was built or is being run
- · Documents copied from other projects have been found repeatedly
- · Treat any passage about future prices or returns with scepticism