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Title: Detecting Text Reuse in Cryptocurrency Whitepapers
Thousands of new cryptocurrencies have been introduced in recent years. Most are introduced with a so-called "whitepaper" containing a mix of technical documentation, legal boilerplate and marketing material. Notably, many proposed currencies reuse text from previous established cryptocurrencies. We analyze the whitepapers from 1 260 actively traded cryptocurrencies and 2 039 ICOs. We develop two measures of similarity. Moderately similar papers reuse text in a portion of the paper, often the legal disclaimers. By contrast, some highly similar whitepapers appear to copy most of the text. 4% of coin and 19% of ICO whitepapers are highly similar to those of traded coins. The fraction rises to 64% for coins and 67% for ICOs when we consider moderate text reuse.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1714291
NSF-PAR ID:
10302254
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
2021 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency (ICBC)
Page Range / eLocation ID:
1 to 5
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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