What is White Paper and how to write it

What is White Paper in ICO

White Paper is a technical document that provides a detailed description of the project, its architecture and method of interaction with users. Additionally, the document includes information about the technology for issuing cryptocurrency, methods of distribution and use of tokens, information about the current market situation and a further development plan.

The first White Paper can be called an information article from Satoshi Nakamoto, dedicated to the technology of the first cryptocurrency Bitcoin. It once served as the only source of information about digital currencies and that’s where it all began.

In essence, a white paper is the first step towards creating a project using Blockchain technology. Without a properly designed white paper, it will be difficult to attract funding for the project. Without knowing detailed information about the structure, team and problems that he is going to solve, the investor will not risk giving his money.

What is White Paper

Most often, this is what white paper is called as a tool with improved B2B marketing power, without which it is simply impossible to promote a project, especially a financial one. The first time such a term was discussed was in 1939, when the British government released its first white paper. It described the nuances of immigration policy, but the name became so popular and popular that it became identified with official statements, especially in English-speaking countries.

When altcoins burst onto the market and their rates skyrocketed, this form changed a little in meaning. Today, I and those who follow financial innovation imagine a certain hybrid with this formulation - a duo of brochure and article. Of course, the main function is to inform, the additional function is to persuade.

Among the main tasks are:

• Attracting the maximum audience;
• Answers to the most pressing questions;
• Specific information about solving a specific problem.

It’s quite rare to find an illustration in this form (in my opinion, such a practice is absolutely disastrous for the financial market, since it is difficult to present something to a potential investor; he needs to see it at least on a small chart).

Experts also recommend immediately placing a potential partner in the business funnel. Along with this, the co-founder of the crypto bank Wirex, Pavel Matveev, claims that it is sometimes difficult for an investor to process all the information in a document.

Therefore, the expert additionally recommends: “... contact directly the project representatives, use information from the official project pages on social networks, in which participants and potential investors analyze all the components of the main document “into small details.”

This is a good way to find answers to all your questions and avoid falling for the bait of unscrupulous ICOs.

White Paper structure for an ICO project

A high-quality White Paper must contain the following sections, but may not be limited to them:

1. Introduction.
2. Description of the market and problems.
3. Description of the product and proposed solution.
4. Description of tokens.
5. Description of the implementation of tokens and the economics of the project.
6. Team story.
7. Road map.

White Papers can be up to 25 pages long, so it is essential to make them easy to navigate with well-structured content and tables of contents. If there are terms that need to be defined, it is recommended that you include a glossary.

A convincing presentation and description is an important step to capture the interest of investors from the very first words. Here it is necessary to talk about the project and draw the reader’s attention to the existing problem, give an explanation of why its solution is so important. This is where the main points and advantages need to be revealed. To do this, you can use any tools: statistics, graphics, charts.

The main part of the document is a description of the project and its architecture. This section should be allocated as much space as is required to explain to future investors how the project will be structured and its current state.

The section on tokens should give the reader a clear idea of ​​why the project needs its own token and how this cryptocurrency will be used and distributed. You should definitely talk about the form and size of the issue. Expense items should also be mentioned in this section. The investor must clearly understand how the money will go into the account and be sure that all funds will be used exclusively to finance the project.

Roadmap - development plan. Ideally, it should be presented as a working plan of action, scheduled for 12-24 months in advance, including at least the launch of a beta version. If some of the objectives have already been achieved, this will provide additional benefits to investors.

ICOs with anonymous developers often fail. The team section should briefly summarize the biographies of the people behind the project, why they are important and what their function is. If any of the people involved already have experience working with blockchain projects, be sure to tell them about their successes.

A section on monetization, which can be included additionally, will also be useful for future investors. Here it is necessary to talk about what indicators the team intends to achieve and what this will bring to future ICO participants. This part should be supported by statistical data, graphs and diagrams with the projected growth of capitalization.

How to read White Paper

This is a beginner's guide to things to look for in white sheets if you are interested in the project. This may not necessarily mean investing, but also contributing to open source or helping with marketing or participating in the community.

There really are no rules for what constitutes WP. Anyone can publish it. Reliable companies use technical documents to establish themselves as experts in the field. However, there is no peer review and no restrictions in the documentation.

The term "white sheets" has developed a halo around itself that gives the impression of it as a technical document. But it is not much different from any other marketing document, they are not rubbish, but they require critical evaluation.

What does this project do? The first question should be fairly simple, but often you will find white papers flying around. The combination of keywords, technical jargon and acronyms you find in a typical cryptocurrency white paper are often difficult to decipher. If you don't know what a project does, then either the project is incredibly advanced or the project doesn't do anything. If you don't understand, don't invest.

How it works? Once you know what the project is aiming for, the next question is: “How?” A good white paper example should explain how the technology will work. The original Bitcoin white paper is a good reference point. This is one of the most readable and understandable documents.

Problem ? By the end of reading the white paper, if you can't articulate what problem the project solves and how it does it, the white paper hasn't worked. In fact, well-formulated documentation is a sign of a well-thought-out project. On the other hand, the opposite is also true. Although on the darknet you can now buy surprisingly high-quality white paper and project ideas.

Why do we need this project? Blockchain can be connected to everything, but is it necessary everywhere? It is very important to consider the project in the context of the real world and immediately for the future. Who will actually use this product and why is this solution better than anything currently available. Check if there is competition, if the idea is implemented better. Regular business, bolted to the blockchain, will soon fall out of favor. Many projects freely admit that they will use blockchain to create tokens and manage smart contracts, and this is completely fine. But if trying to count uranium ore on a blockchain or something like that, be careful.

Is this copy-paste? Seriously, pieces of white paper need to be googled, perhaps this has already been posted somewhere. We've seen examples of companies that have plagiarized or falsified their white papers, as well as some fact-checking and research.

If you decide to invest in a project, then use common sense. Even the best white paper does not mean that the project will be successful, but a bad white paper can show a project that is doomed to fail.

Examples of successful White Papers

You can guide your writing on the White Paper of projects that have managed to attract huge investments with their descriptions:

• Ethereum – $15.5 million raised.
• Quoine - $105 million raised.
• EOS - raised a record amount of $883.4 million.
• DigixDAO - raised $5.5 million.
• Ripple - raised $93.6 million.
• Aeternity - raised almost $34 million.
• Tron - raised $70 million.
• Filecoin - $257 million invested.
• Monetha - raised $37 million.

Sometimes even comic projects collect large sums of money with a well-written blank sheet of paper. For example, Ethereum Useless, which managed to raise more than 200 thousand dollars.

What should a white paper for an ICO look like?

Blockchain expert and founder of the Benja.co and Ship Ninja projects Andrew Chapin described the structure of the ideal White paper in a column for Hacker Noon. This is very competent advice, a summary of which we present in our material.

So, a good White paper should contain the following sections:

• problem;
• proposed solution and product description;
• description of the implementation of the token (how it interacts with the product, economics and technical implementation);
• team;
• release of tokens and future plans.

Team

Although the project team section is usually located at the end of the document, it is one of the most important elements. According to Chapin, any angel investor can tell a lot of stories about how he invested in a strong team with a bad idea because he was convinced of its ability to come up with something worthwhile along the way.

For example, before the pivot:

1. Android was the operating system for cameras,
2. At the time of its founding, Nokia was engaged in woodworking and paper production,
3. Pinterest started out as a shopping app rather than a social network (though it eventually moved back toward e-commerce).

Therefore, it is important that the team contains diverse specialists who have already achieved some success in the past, and also, ideally, have at least some experience in the field of blockchain.

Very often, teams try to organize a fundraiser when they don’t have engineers on staff who understand how blockchain works: the founders think that the main thing is to raise money, and they can hire an engineer later.

But don't put the cart before the horse, because before people want to give money to the project, they need to understand that the team is capable of creating what it set out to do.

Product Description

The second most important section of the White paper should be devoted to the description of the product: information about the availability of a prototype, first users and development plans. Very often, ICOs are carried out with only a beautifully designed pdf and several mockups, a specially prepared file in which you can place your design on real objects. They are needed to show how the picture will look in real life. , but - neither the product itself, nor the users, nor any traction.

If the project already has an existing ecosystem and users, then the chances of a successful life of the token increase, which means that the presence of these elements must be reported in the documentation.

It is very important to describe in detail your plans for using the funds raised. Today in the ICO world there are a lot of organizations that announce their plans to create some kind of “industrial consortia”, non-profit divisions or launch a series of events for “industry development”. All this raises suspicions that someone from the team has the intention of spending part of the money not on product development, but on something else.

The token itself should be mentioned when it is presented on the exchange. If there is no answer to this question or according to the plan this should happen in 30-60 days, then this is a reason to suspect something is wrong.

According to Chapin, in this case, there is a high probability that the project team is going to manipulate the price of the token when free trade opens. In general, the company’s future interaction with the issued tokens is of interest to the audience: will the issue be limited to presale, what will determine the start of sales on the market, and whether buy-backs will be carried out.

Of course, the White paper must contain a detailed technical description of the project and plans for its further development (development roadmap). Ideally, the team should present a detailed plan for its work for the next 12-18 months, which should include a beta launch. If some of the roadmap points have already been completed, this is a plus.

How to write a good White Paper for ICO

Every detail is important when writing a project master document. Be sure to use businesslike, almost academic language. Avoid assumptions, conjectures and uncertain statements. When choosing a style, you should also take into account the target audience. If the product is intended mainly for technically savvy users, then it is better to write it in the format of a scientific paper. For a general audience, it is better to avoid complex formulations and not overuse terms.

It is recommended to concentrate on what is important and create a narrowly focused document, without unnecessary discussions about possible uses of the product. Talk only about the specific problem that the project will solve and how that solution will be achieved.

Naturally, the White Paper should not contain spelling and grammatical errors. To look professional, document text must be formatted correctly. In order to present a project in several languages, it is better to contact a professional translator.

The main language of the ICO is English. You can prepare a white paper in Russian, presenting the information in a convenient form and the desired format, and then order a high-quality translation for a fee or attract an enthusiast who is ready to work for the future for a certain share of coins in the future.

how to create a white paper

For me, creating a white paper is a nightmare. After all, it takes a couple of weeks to implement it.

Provided that I understand how and what to do, I understand the topic well, I have good experience in copywriting, and no one will distract me with other tasks.

If you are missing at least one element from the list, the period increases several times. For example, one friend wrote his mini-book for 8 months!

Do you think that the main thing is to write? I will disappoint you. This is only part of the process, and it has a huge number of pitfalls.

Therefore, if you do not read the text further, then do not be surprised if, after several months of extensive work, you receive a non-working tool.

My job is to warn you, I can’t force you. And I continue, and now I’ll tell you briefly, but step by step, how to write this tool:

1. Task. You need to determine for what purpose you are writing your mini-book.
   For example, close objections, transfer from stage to stage, create express positioning, and so on, and at what point will the client read it (study Hunt’s Ladder);
2. Concept. Format, topic, content, presentation style, volume - all this and much more needs to be thought through before starting implementation, because it is important to know what, where and when to write. Otherwise it will turn out: some go to the forest, some for firewood;
3. Roles. Distribution of responsibilities is a necessary stage if you decide to delegate this task to other employees or external companies. But be prepared that you won’t be able to give everything away, since the main expert is you;
4. Creation. A dense and painful process where you not only write, but also collect various evidence base in the form of tables, graphs and statistics.
   And since it is impossible to know everything, you constantly have to communicate with other experts;
5. Correction and design. We can say that you have gone through fire and water, only copper pipes remain.
   This is checking by a proofreader and designing it so that everything is read avidly, and the brain focuses on the most important things.

After all the work done, you will have a white paper of 15-40 pages. There is no optimal size.

It can be 200 pages (although I have never seen such a thing). The most important thing is that he solves the problem and the client really studies him. After all, everything is done for him. And if now, at this stage of his “maturation”, 15 pages are enough for him, then there is no need to go out of his way to do 30.

Ready-made White Paper templates

Now on the Internet you can find many ready-made templates for White Paper on a paid and free basis. For example, the resource venngage.com offers a choice of several dozen layouts with selected graphics, where you just need to replace the information with your own. You can also take a sample from the posted white papers of famous projects.

The number of freelancers willing to work on the creation of a white paper is also growing exponentially along with the growing popularity of the ICO itself. A hired employee can either prepare a template with graphics or write a complete document using the information you provide about the project.

The use of ready-made templates is often frowned upon in the cryptocurrency community and among investors. If you want to conduct a truly high-quality and profitable ICO, then you need to work on creating a unique White Paper. You can also attract a specialist as part of a Bounty campaign.

What determines the quality of White Paper

The success and “persuasiveness” of a whitepaper for investors depends not so much on the ability of the authors to write beautifully, but on the well-coordinated work of the project team. They must work closely together, helping each other. Then the idea, financial justification and technical part will be perfectly developed. Such a White Paper will produce the desired effect, even if it is not the most stylistically elegant document.

To increase the success and investment in the ICO, its “white paper” requires:

• well formulate the essence, relevance, value of the idea;
• justify why the product will be in demand;
• describe how the project will be technically implemented;
• justify the economic and investment feasibility of issuing tokens;
• provide a detailed marketing analysis and justify its connection with the campaign;
• describe the team members - experience, expertise, personality (biography, social media accounts);
• describe the current market situation “in relation” to the product;
• describe the advertising campaign and the nuances of project PR.

For each of the factors, you need to highlight a part in the document, including not only text, but also infographics, tables with supporting figures, diagrams, charts and other visual triggers.

conclusions

The success of an ICO largely depends on how interesting and catchy the White Paper is, because at the initial stage of formation this is the only thing that the project is. The text should inspire confidence among investors and a desire to change the world together with the developers.

It is important to understand that if a team is trying to solve a non-existent or unimportant problem, does not have sufficient experience and is not very savvy in blockchain technology, then the ICO may be a failure, even if the White Paper is written according to all the canons.

How to write a White Paper?

Creating optimized text for a white paper seems like a fairly straightforward process. However, you will have to spend a lot of time and effort to get quality material. To make your work easier, we recommend considering the following rules:

1. An ideal WP is aimed at the interests of the reader and solves some of his problems.
2. Be prepared to spend a lot of time on work (10-20 hours in total).
3. Text structure: the main part of the document contains useful information, and information about your company (or service) takes up no more than 15% of the entire material.
4. Organize the material competently and easily. Lexical and grammatical errors are not allowed in the text.
5. To enhance the attention of a potential client, use diagrams, tables, illustrations and other graphic images.
6. Clients always trust the opinions of outside experts, so use surveys, research, and interviews.