Follow these crypto white paper guidelines to earn credibility and trust for your project
When launching a new cryptocurrency-based startup or creating a new cryptocurrency, it can be challenging to secure funding without a clear plan and benefits for potential investors. Research shows that a large percentage of the global population has never purchased cryptocurrency and only a small percentage fully understands how they work. To address this, crypto developers have introduced the concept of a white paper as part of the initial coin offering (ICO) process. The white paper outlines the project’s goals, strategies, and technical details, providing potential investors with a comprehensive understanding of the new digital currency before its development and launch.
Let’s look at the role of whitepapers in cryptocurrency development to see how they can help your project get off to a good start.
The benefits of a well-written white paper
White papers, in general, are supposed informative documents that companies issue to present a product or service to public backers. They use as part of a company’s overall marketing strategy. Crypto companies are now using these as advertising materials for cryptocurrencies since they offer a detailed breakdown of how the currency will be created. This means that writing a white paper for an upcoming cryptocurrency project is very important if a company, especially a startup, wants to efficiently attract investors and secure funding for their startup.
Once you publish a well-written whitepaper and set up a trustworthy cryptocurrency wallet, your crypto project will benefit you in several ways. These include; raising public awareness for your cryptocurrency project, quickly filtering relevant B2B investors and B2C backers, increasing project engagement and ICO funding conversion rates, and faster acquisition of necessary development assets.
Before we dive into how to write a white paper, let us look at the difference between whitepapers and press releases. While both are necessary for you to get attention from investors, media, and your target audience, there is a difference. Usually, when companies are looking to make an announcement, it’s normal to default to using a press release.
These are generally short, factual announcements that are designed to share news about a company. On the other hand, white papers can compare to persuasive essays that use facts and arguments to promote a particular product or service. While a white paper is also created by a company, whitepapers are longer and designed to help brands present facts and develop arguments. Oftentimes, they are submitted to media publications as bylined articles or opinion pieces.
How to use white papers in the cryptocurrency industry
When it comes to the crypto industry, it’s important to note that not all white papers, even in the crypto space, are about raising capital. Many are used solely to spread information to a user or enthusiastic community. Indeed, the first use of a white paper in the crypto world was to announce important news and inform people of new developments. When Satoshi Nakamoto birthed the blockchain revolution in October 2008, he announced it by publishing the Bitcoin white paper on a cryptography mailing list. This sparked a tradition of using a white paper to inform new concepts, theories, and applications in the blockchain space. Writing white papers has become a valuable skill as a result.
An essential function of a white paper is to justify a new idea, concept, or solution. In the case of blockchain-related projects, it’s frequently about justifying and explaining why a crypto company is building a solution and issuing a token. More importantly, a white paper is designed to explain the advantages that those who invest in the project will receive. White papers that adequately justify why a crypto project exists and explain the merits of the coin they are issuing to raise funds are, in fact, the most effective.
Unfortunately, most white papers fail to justify either the project or the token they want to sell or airdrop. As a result, it’s far too easy for potential backers to conclude that they will have a slim chance of recouping their money. Any investor who has a negative impression of a project’s coin will not buy or accept it. A white paper also does an excellent job of justifying and explaining why the team behind the project is the best one for the job. After all, people buy a brand, not their products. In other words, they buy a company’s product because they trust the brand’s abilities. This is even more true with blockchain projects. Many investors purchase a token or invest in a project because they recognize a name on the team or are confident in their ability to complete the project.
A white paper is also an excellent way to demonstrate the team’s capacity and skills. It accomplishes this by providing detailed biographies of the team’s key members. It also achieves this with a professional appearance. A comprehensive, thorough, realistic, and clear explanation convinces readers that the project’s creators are knowledgeable about what they’re doing.
How Pressfarm can help with this
As mentioned above, plenty of whitepapers seem to miss the mark when trying to express important information about a crypto project. For this reason, it is advisable to hire professionals who are well-versed in creating whitepapers. More specifically, it’s important to hire a team that has what it takes to create a white paper for a crypto company. PR agencies like Pressfarm can help you create content for your crypto project and provide expert advice and insight into the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry.
Pressfarm helps companies of all sizes to create newsworthy content from press releases to guest posts and press kits. All of this content is then distributed to media professionals, bloggers, influencers, and the general public. Since finding the perfect journalist to cover a story can be a tedious task, this team of PR professionals also provides access to their database of over 1 million journalists across different industries. Additionally, the Account Executive personally builds a customized list of the best journalists in each client’s niche to help them achieve the best media coverage.
Digital PR is a part of every company’s overall business strategy and an important part of Pressfarm’s personalized campaigns. The experts at Pressfarm help companies to achieve online visibility and feature in relevant search results across various search engines.
Now that we have looked at the role of whitepapers in crypto projects let us look at some whitepaper writing guidelines and steps that you need to consider when writing a white paper.
Writing guidelines for a cryptocurrency whitepaper
1) Introduction
Like any other formal document, a cryptocurrency whitepaper should begin with legalities about the company and its CEO. It’s also important to include the date of publication and additional important information. The title page should be followed by the whitepaper’s abstract for future reference, and then the introduction itself. You should use the introduction to talk about your company and highlight its history (treat it like an essay introduction). It’s critical not to dive right into the specific crypto project that you’re promoting. Instead, you should take the time to get to know your readers before presenting them with a cryptocurrency value proposition.
2) Describe the value of your project
Once you’ve gotten through the introduction, you have an important task ahead of you. You must explain the purpose of your cryptocurrency project and highlight why it is necessary. Whitepapers for ICO projects typically focus on highly relevant public issues such as environmental issues, unemployment, healthcare, and so on. You should connect with your reader’s emotions by introducing a problem that they can relate to. One of the primary functions of cryptocurrency whitepapers is to provide information. Investors who focus on infrastructure, for example, are not interested in a project that aims to solve education problems. You must describe the specifics of the problem your cryptocurrency project solves. Make sure you focus on its global impact and potential future consequences if the problem is left unresolved.
3) Describe in detail your solution to the problem
You should then go on to outline the solution to the problem you’ve just presented. You should specify whether you want to develop physical products for international distribution or a cloud-based service. Additionally, you need to go into detail about what infrastructure resources you’ll need to carry out your plans. It’s important to emphasize that you shouldn’t get too deep into the details of funding your ICO project just yet. Instead, you should concentrate on practical, step-by-step solutions to the problem at hand. This will give potential backers a clear picture of how you plan to use the funds raised through the ICO.
4) Present your project team
In order to demonstrate your proactivity and dedication to your project, it is a good idea to introduce your project team in the whitepaper. You should include coworkers, team members, and networking consultants. From there, you can talk about what companies, startups, or brands have played a part in helping you launch your cryptocurrency project. Presenting such information in a whitepaper will help to weed out backers and investors who aren’t interested in a company’s ICO strategy. It’s better to do so now rather than later, when there may be misunderstandings or undiscovered information.
5) Layout a development roadmap
One of the most important aspects of cryptocurrency whitepapers comes from the development roadmap. More specifically, readers will find value in any concrete steps, milestones, and launch deadlines that you layout. Potential investors want objective information about their investments and specific details on how a company plans to bridge the gap between theory and practice. You can use SMART goals to create a basic roadmap for your ICO. You can include these in the whitepaper for transparency.
6) List funding options and rewards
Finally, you should describe how potential investors can contribute to and fund your projects and the advantages of investing in the project. Depending on the amount of financial rating, cryptocurrency projects typically reward backers with special launch tokens or exclusive coins. It’s a good idea to divide backers into tiers and offer different rewards for different amounts of money invested. Make sure to reward public investors fairly, as they will invest in your project based solely on your whitepaper. While writing this section of the cryptocurrency whitepaper, you should use your best judgment based on the scope and requirements of your project.
7) Provide up-to-date contact information
Before investing large sums of money in your cryptocurrency startup, large B2B investors will undoubtedly want to discuss the company’s whitepaper in detail. You should include updated information to help backers contact you once they have gathered all the necessary information for your ICO project. Beyond helping potential backers connect with you, including such information upfront will indicate that you are trustworthy and serious about the project you’re promoting.
Once potential backers realize they have a direct line to the team behind the crypto project, they’re more likely to trust you. For added credibility, it’s also a good idea to create a dedicated website for the ICO project or publish it on a reputable global cryptocurrency network. You should not give backers any reason to doubt your intentions. Additionally, you should demonstrate your proactivity by communicating professionally and thoroughly throughout the fundraising process and beyond.
8) Follow through
A cryptocurrency whitepaper is the most effective marketing tool available to a crypto company. Even so, following through on promises and delivering a usable product/service afterward is just as crucial for your reputation. You must be careful not to exaggerate your abilities or aim for the moon and fail to deliver. It’s best to be realistic and let backers decide whether or not to fund your ICO based on concrete data and milestones.
Conclusion
You must develop a comprehensive and professional whitepaper to present to potential investors, in addition to other audiences. Ideally, you should combine your white paper creation and distribution with a robust content marketing strategy. With a multi-pronged approach, it’s easier to appeal to a wider audience. For example, the standard place to publish your white paper is on your website. Once you’ve connected with your audience on social media you can also share your white paper there. However, it is not just about having a professional white paper. Beyond that, you always need to provide the correct information and follow through on everything stated in the whitepaper. In this way, you can make sure the company is always seen as trustworthy.
How Pressfarm can help
For an entrepreneur, how you shape your brand image can determine your success or failure. At Pressfarm, we help companies define the right narrative in the media for their brand – either to improve their credibility or resolve a PR crisis. If you are an entrepreneur wondering how to improve your company’s publicity, get in touch with us. We can help you to craft and distribute your press releases, develop compelling guest posts and design eye-catching media kits for your brand.
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