It is a great day for another installment of Learning Crypto, today I want to speak on the importance of reading the white papers of tokens and cryptocurrencies.

Lots of times these white papers are long and full of technical lingo. If you ever actually take the time to read an entire white paper, often times you feel like you ought to get an award for your efforts. But the best you can do is subtly brag to your crypto friends that “You read the white paper”

Sure, bragging rights are great but there are other, much more important reasons for taking the time to do this.

What you will learn about crypto white papers is that (the good ones at least) they are designed to do several things:

• Inform the public of the project,

• What they want to accomplish,

• Why they believe their product is needed,

• Their roadmap which is a timeline of milestones they want to reach and when,

• Their methods for meeting their goals

• (If it is a project that will hold an ICO) You can also find how they will distribute the tokens that are created.

Learning about these aspects of a crypto project will help you better understand all that goes into creating new crypto currencies.

White papers are great tools for beginners to be exposed to higher level crypto vocabulary. More often then not you will come across words that make you feel like you’re missing something, and that’s when dictionaries come into play.

Don’t be afraid to look up words you don’t know, and don’t be afraid to learn something new.

Sure it can be tedious and overwhelming but if you’re interested in deepening your knowledge of this space, white papers are a good source and there are plenty out there for you to explore.
After you’ve read over a few of them you’ll begin to develop a better sense of what makes a good white paper, which is also an indication of the quality of the crypto project itself.
You’ll notice things like:

• What kind of info they are leaving out

• If their project has legitimate use cases

• The type of philosophies that are behind the project.

Slowly but surely you’ll begin honing your skills and developing more confidence in your knowledge of this space.

Additional Reading/Sources:

Dictionary...USE IT:)
10 Keys for Evaluating ICOs
White Paper Definition
Valuable Resources for ICO research
Investitin Research Guide
Fundamental Analysis for Cryptocurrencies

Good White Papers to Explore
Bitcoin White Paper
Ethereum Homestead Document
OmiseGo White Paper
IOTA White Paper
DecentBet White Paper