Table of Contents
ICO White Paper
Every new cryptocurrency requires a white paper outlining how to explain and promote an initial coin offering (ICO).
So does any new token with an ITO.
According to industry analysts, the age of big-money ICOs may be coming to an end, hence ICO white paper must be better than before.
By this time, I’ve worked on ten ICO white papers covering topics ranging from artificial intelligence to video game advertising. And I’ve read a slew of others.
As with white papers in any niche, I find that a few are excellent, the majority are adequate, and a few are atrocious.
Based upon what I’ve seen, here are my top ten tips for improving any ICO white paper.
Tip #1 for ICO white papers: Know your audience.
Beginning authors tend to concentrate on their areas of interest. Far too many people who engage in content marketing do as well.
However, writing about what your audience is interested in is significantly more effective. This will capture and hold their attention.
How do you go about doing that?
First, consider who you’re attempting to reach.
Are they academics or engineers who are passionate about cryptography and the most recent advancements in your approach to blockchain?
Or are they business professionals or investors that are more interested in your market space, your business model, and how your new alt-coin compares to the competition?
And, if necessary, conduct audience research. Meet and converse with some of them. Inquire about what information they value in a white paper and what they can go without.
You can design your ICO white paper to appeal to either group.
Your white paper should be focused on a mathematical as well technical challenge and a better way to tackle it in order to reach academics or developers.
Code examples, arithmetic formulas, use-case diagrams, and notes on complicated design decisions are frequently included.
Footnotes to journal articles or other academic-white papers are generally included. They’re typically formatted to look like a LaTeX math journal.
These white papers are ideal for attracting developers who are intrigued by these difficulties and want to contribute to their resolution.
And they can assist you in gaining so-called “thought leadership” in the blockchain field.
Here’s an example that includes the majority of the elements of this type. (Click here to get the complete paper.)
Your ICO white paper should focus on an industry problem and how your proposed new cryptocurrency will address it in order to engage business people or investors.
Third-party research, market estimates, and notes regarding the ecosystem or niche to be established are frequently included.
Footnotes referencing magazine or forum articles or third-party studies are frequently included.
They’ve been formatted in a more appealing manner.
These white papers are the most effective in attracting investors to an ICO.
This is due to fact that investors lack the technical knowledge—as well as the patience—to comprehend the nuances of an academic white paper.
Here’s an example that exemplifies the majority of the distinguishing characteristics of this kind.
- When writing an ICO white paper, don’t write the kind you’re most familiar with.
- Write in a style that will be appealing to your intended audience.
- In most situations, this entails creating a commercial-type ICO white paper for investors.
Tip #2 for ICO white papers: Respect your audience.
This seems too obvious to state it, but bear with me.
“We’re looking for rich Asians with money more than brains,” a firm founder previously told me about his ICO possibilities. People who don’t care if they get anything back from us and just want to get their money out of their nation!”
How can someone operate a business if they dislike their investors in such a way?
With that approach, any ICO—and the business that supports it—is doomed to fail or never get off the ground in the first place.
I don’t want any part of your ICO white paper or your new cryptocurrency if you’re just running an ICO to swindle your investors. I hope no one else does either.
Blockchains may be able to build “trust” where none previously existed, but they cannot create “respect” where none previously existed.
ICO white paper tip #3: Create a compelling case for your coin.
The most serious flaw I observe in most ICO white papers is a lack of a compelling reason for launching yet another cryptocurrency or token.
Over 5,000 cryptocurrencies have already been released. There is simply no need for that many. The same goes for fresh tokens.
Many of them were swindles. The majority have already failed.
Many naive dreamers produced new alt-coins or tokens in order to raise funds for startups.
That was a simple way to get funds in the peak of 2017.
That path is significantly narrower today, and startups must work hard to justify any new alt-coin.
Some of the resulting white papers address a real business issue that has to be addressed. However, most fail to demonstrate why their cryptocurrency white paper or token is the best method to solve that problem.
In fact, this is one of the first questions I ask: “Why do you need a new coin or token for that?”
In most circumstances, the same operation may be carried out with any regular fiat currency, such as US dollars or Euros.
So, if you want to create new coin or launch a new token, make a compelling case for why it is required.
Tip #4 for ICO white papers: Look for third-party proof.
In relation to the preceding point, the weaker ICO white papers I’ve seen don’t offer a lot of proof points or third-party research.
The problem is the same as it is with any other white paper. Simply saying something is true does not make it so. Where is the evidence?
You may have a razor-sharp insight into a vexing global issue. But are you certain that no one else has had a similar thought? Are you certain that no one else agrees with you? Locate and quote your allies.
What about those who are passionately opposed to you? Summarize their concerns before attempting to dismantle them.
Every assertion or claim in a white paper, as outlined in this article, should be supported by a mountain of evidence.
What is good evidence?
- Names, numbers, dates, and times that are specific
- Quotes from professionals or trustworthy sources
- Association or trade group surveys
- Government documents
- Articles from well-known trade publications
And, as this essay explains, the finest evidence fits all four criteria for proximity, authority, timeliness & relevancy.
If you don’t spend at least 2 or 3 days hunting for research to back up the pitch in your ICO white paper, it will be riddled with gaps.
For example, I recently examined ten ICO white papers at random and saw that each included an average of 15 footnotes.
Two other ICO papers I worked on had 45 and 65 footnotes, respectively!
Potential investors may not know what’s lacking if you don’t look for it. They will, however, have a gut feeling that you haven’t created a compelling argument.
ICO white paper tip no #5: Include a good photo of everyone on the team. Examples of terrible ICO white paper profile photos
“The Team” is a standard section of every ICO white paper.
This is meant to display your management team in the best light possible, demonstrating that you have assembled a healthy balance of youthful energy and seasoned business knowledge.
But it’s not ideal if your squad doesn’t appear like a team.
It’s not enough to paste in teeny-tiny LinkedIn headshots. Alternatively, display certain photographs in colour and others in black-and-white.
This makes investors wonder how serious the folks on your list are.
Get a recent colour photo with a neutral background for everyone on the team. Crop them so that all of the heads are around the same size. Use an action shot with a clean background rather than one with a cluttered background.
Allow no one to wear a sports jersey or T-shirt with someone else’s logo on it. Is it your ICO or a local football club you’re attempting to promote?
Some companies in this market are doing an excellent job.
Tradebits, for example, is a new bitcoin exchange with a fantastic set of team photographs. Here are three illustrations.
On the company website, there are six more full-sized photographs that are just as good as these.
What makes these photographs so appealing?
- Everyone appears in a full-length photograph in an easygoing pose.
- The use of black-and-white uniforms everyone’s clothing to the same tones.
- Everyone has roughly the same size head and shoulders.
- Everyone has a friendly expression or a smile.
Don’t you feel like you’hve already know these guys just by looking at these photos? That they don’t have anything to hide? And that they’re all collaborating closely?
That is exactly the impressions you want to convey with your team’s photos.
What characteristics distinguish a decent profile photo?
Photofeeler.com is a website where you may publish a profile image and have visitors rate it for attributes such as competency, likability, and influence.
You can get views by rating other people’s images or by purchasing a bundle of views for a few dollars. The feedback you’ll receive will be direct yet honest.
Someone on your team may claim that they don’t have a good image. This is something I’ve heard a lot from technical professionals in Eastern Europe.
What?! They don’t own a smartphone or a digital camera, do they? They don’t have a pal who can photograph them? They don’t have a beige wall in front of which to stand?
What are they concealing?
Would you invest in a company whose employees made excuses for not taking a colour photograph? No, I wouldn’t.
If you need help putting all of these photographs together and making your team look like a team, hire a professional designer. There’s more on that in tip #7.
Tip #6 for ICO white papers: Include a decent bio for everyone on the team.
A good bio is a natural partner to a beautiful photo for the same reason.
A haphazard collection of profiles suggests that your team isn’t cohesive.
Get a standardised bio for everyone on the team that summarises their job, experience, and education. Include the city or nation in which each person resides. List major teaching positions or publications published by academics.
These profiles do not need to be lengthy: It’s fine to write 50 or 100 words.
However, make them all the same length.
Showing half a page on one individual but only three lines on another can make the second person appear unimportant.
I want to see a summary at the beginning of a bio that indicates the major theme in the person’s career, even if it isn’t always obvious.
Here are a few examples of what I’m talking about:
Andre has been assisting individuals in learning and solving problems with consumer software for the past 15 years. (17 characters)
Zola was born with a passion for transportation. He has experience as a taxi driver and ferry boat captain, and he is a professional helicopter pilot. (27 characters)
Josie may be said to exist just for the sake of eating. She grew up working in her family restaurant, shopped at local markets six mornings a week, got a Grand Diplôme from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, and launched her own food distribution company at the age of 28. (43 characters)
These standardised bios aren’t easy to get, believe me. These can be one of the most difficult sections of your white paper to write.
If you need assistance putting together a strong set of bios, contact a professional writer/editor. For example, using LinkedIn, any available CV, and a few e-mailed questions, I can generally create a nice quick bio.
Tip #7 for ICO white papers: Make it easy on the eyes.
A nice page design and some bold, clear illustrations are also required for every ICO white paper.
Let’s start with page design.
Papers on ICOs for academics or developers: Many of them are formatted with the LaTeX/TeX typesetting system, which you may download and use for free under Windows, MacOS, or Linux.
LaTeX produces beautiful typography and is adept at handling mathematical formulae. The default settings produce a document that resembles an article from a mathematics journal.
I learnt it in a matter of hours and found it to be a joy to use.
As with any formatting language, the simplest mistake can cause your document to crash. But once you figure it out, you’re back in the air.
I particularly like the default Computer Modern typeface, which is displayed below:
Computer Modern Font Sample
Papers on Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) for business owners or investors: The following tools are used to prepare standard budget papers: To draught the text, use Word or Google Docs, and then use InDesign to create visually appealing pages and generate a PDF:
- a symbol for Microsoft Word OR a symbol for Google Docs a symbol for InDesign a symbol for PDF
- Low-budget papers are prepared and formatted in Google Docs or Word before being saved as a PDF:
- a Microsoft Word symbol OR a Google Docs icon a PDF icon
- Some things are simply not possible in Google Docs, particularly with tables and images.
However, I find it to be more convenient for gathering comments and less fussy in general than Word. And I’m a Word power user: I’ve been using it since 1985.
A side-by-side comparison of Word and Gdocs may be found in this article.
Leave enough of white space in the margins surrounding the text, such as 1.5 inches or 4 cm, no matter what design programme you use.
For Pete’s sake, make the text completely black so that folks over the age of 40 can read it! You do want their support, don’t you?
See tips #6 and #7 in this post for further information.
In addition to page design, all ICO white papers require images. In fact, each of the ten ICO white papers I examined featured an average of six illustrations.
These could contain a flowchart showing your new alt-coin in use, as well as a vision of the new ecosystem you intend to build.
Cheap stock photography is an excellent solution for infrequent visuals that just break up the pages.
If you need help designing visually appealing pages and creating unique visuals, hire a professional designer. How much would that set you back?
Budget roughly $250 for each unique image and $2,500 for designing about 25 pages. This adds up to $4,000 or more to boost the visual appeal of your white paper.
The more graphics and pages there are, the higher the graphic charges will be.
Is it worthwhile? Absolutely, when you’re attempting to impress investors and raise millions of dollars.
ICO white paper advice #8: Do not include the kitchen sink.
- Most businesses that publish their first white paper include everything but the kitchen sink.
- With other words, they aim to accomplish a lot in a single paper.
- The average length of the ten ICO white papers I examined was 19 pages or 5,600 words.
- But I’ve worked on a few papers that were over 70 pages long! That equates to 20,000 words. That is simply too much information for anyone to take in from a single document.
- Nobody says everything has to be in one paper.
- If you have to say, I suggest breaking it up into two or three separate documents:
A problem/solution that provides a high-level explanation of the opportunity and your innovative blockchain solution.
A extensive technical backgrounder that contains arithmetic formulas, software architecture, code samples, and important use cases.
A simpler backgrounder that explains how new currencies will be created, how revenue will be distributed among players, and how the ICO will operate.
The white paper #3 will pique the interest of the majority of potential investors.
white paper tip #9:
Publish more than a photo montage of numerous types of material in your white paper.
I’ve seen ICO websites that are nothing more than a link to a white paper and a sign-up form for an e-mail list.
You’ve got to be able to come up with more stuff than that!
Here’s a thought: What about reusing sections of the white paper as blog posts or enhancing it with other information?
Why not, for example, publish:
A FAQ about the ICO that answers the most frequently asked questions.
For those who prefer to see a presentation, there is a PowerPoint with voiceovers.
An infographic that depicts the issue and how your new coin will fix it.
An explainer video that summarises the main point in a minute or two.
“When it comes to generating funds for ICO, the white paper is merely the top of the iceberg,” Dylan Bridger, President and COO of ZenRevenue, a blockchain content marketing firm based in Canada, agrees.
“In addition to a flawlessly written white-paper,” he says, “it’s critical to generate material that further breaks down your value to potential investors and exhibits thought leadership.”
“While the white paper discusses the technical intricacies of your project, the additional content reinforces your value propositions, humanises your brand, and instils trust in your audience.”
ICO white paper tip #10: Enlist the assistance of an expert editor.
Are you disappointed to learn that you must put in a lot more effort before your draught white paper is suitable for use?
What if you don’t have time?
Or does your team lack the necessary editing skills, particularly in English?
You might wish to hire an experienced ICO white paper editor to help you improve your draught.
A professional editor may help you reinforce your proof points, make your team sound more cohesive, and explain your ideas in more legible English.
How much would that set you back?
Budget at least $100 per page for revisions and copyediting. This will cost you at least $2,500 to make your 25-page draught significantly more legible, professional, and persuasive.
The higher the editorial charges, the rougher the original text and the more pages.
Is it worthwhile? Absolutely, when you’re attempting to impress investors and raise millions of dollars.
As an added bonus, an expert ICO white paper writer can assist you with adhering to the norms of these documents and posing questions regarding your business model and the rationale for your coin.
Some can even act as advisers, assisting you in refining your ideas.
Conclusion
Follow all of these suggestions, and your ICO white paper will stand out as one of the few that are excellent.
A strong white paper can mean the difference between raising millions of dollars or Euros and meeting all of your objectives for any blockchain ICO… or failing miserably and having to abandon your ambitions. Keep in touch with Scoopearth.
