White paper

A white paper is a document published by a crypto project to explain what it does, how its technology works, and often how its token is distributed and used. The genre began with Satoshi Nakamoto's nine-page "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System", released on 31 October 2008. Ethereum's white paper was published by Vitalik Buterin in late 2013.

A good white paper describes a concrete problem, a technical design that can be checked, and the trade-offs involved. Read it alongside the token's actual distribution, the team and investors' allocations and vesting schedules, which projects sometimes publish separately as "tokenomics".

Red flags include vague promises of returns, buzzwords with no technical detail, plagiarised text and token allocations heavily weighted toward insiders. A white paper is marketing as well as documentation, and it is not audited.