Hi everyone.
I'm newbie in ICO and I hope anyone can help me figure out what to look at when checking whitepaper of an ICO so I will know if it's gonna be a good project or just another scam or shitcoin.
I usually see in whitepaper what the project can do in the future and it seems all the same so what am I missing? Is it really should be like a term paper or business proposal on college?
Also, besides for dev team what should be to look at at good ICO?
Thank you for answering.
To answer your question first.. no it should not seem like a term paper or a buisness proposal in college.. if a white paper is too technical and doesn't explain its initiative in a way that common people would understand then the white paper has failed.. If it fails your analysis it will likely fail others, and your pessimism is most likely warranted..
Here are soome general rules I follow...
1) First off, I completely write off coins that use a name ripoff.. Like Neo Gold.. or Bitcoin Cash Gold or Litecoin Cash or Ethereum Classic Blue Gold... you get the point (and yes I would have missed Ethereum Blue in this case, which actually seems to have some value).
2) When examining the white paper.. ask yourself what a coin's competition would be? If its an anonymous coin, what does it do that Monero doesn't? What is it really adding to the current coin's that its competing with as a unique use case? Its not enough anymore to just have yet ANOTHER smart contract or privacy coin.. they have to be adding features or something that seperates itself out.
3) Make sure the white paper is in good English, you can usually tell how much of a scam coin something is by the way it is written. (to be fair I would have missed out on Antshares with this one.. as successful as NEO is.. its white paper was terribly written English at first).
4) Does the white paper have an attached video or stock art of commonly used animations? This means they just threw something together as a cheap presentation and it was either hurried/low budget.. this is not something you want to see when investing thousands of dollars into something.
5) Check their twitter page and other media sources to see their activity level and quality of content.. is it something theyre doing auto follow to farm followers or does it seem well established and posting content that is rich.. you may can even fake a good white paper but your marketing department will bleed through if its weak pretty easily.
6) Common sense will take you far.. if it feels poorly written and lacks basic information flow.. it probably is bad.. it should just feel like an organic healthy project and not something created on a website template with a poorly written white paper that is too technical or hard to understand.. and the media outlets surrounding the website and white paper should feel high quality and not a follower farm. Eye tests are the most vital of all information and the other specifics don't really matter if this step can't be passed.. start here!