Whitepaper
A technical and business document published by the creators of a crypto project, describing its technology, purpose, and how it works.
A whitepaper is a document in which the creators of a crypto project describe the problem they aim to solve, the technology used, how the token works, and how it will be distributed. The term was popularized by the Bitcoin whitepaper, published by Satoshi Nakamoto in October 2008.
The quality and rigor of a whitepaper is often one of the first signals when assessing a new project's credibility — it's worth checking whether it describes a real problem and a concrete technical solution, or is mostly marketing packaging with little substance. Some jurisdictions now legally regulate this document for public token offerings — the EU's MiCA framework, for example, introduced a mandatory "crypto-asset white paper" with specific required disclosures.