The impact of the aesthetic appearance of the whitepaper on the final amount raised and the probability of success of the ICO.
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de-Grave-05201700-de-Meester-61681700-2023.pdf
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- Abstract
- The ICO industry is taking more and more space in the world of finance. Indeed, this way of financing projects is becoming highly appreciated by investors. However, ICO’s belong to a very unregulated environment, invaded by information asymmetries. One tool to counter this asymmetry are whitepapers which can give crucial information to investors, especially via their aesthetic appearance. We therefore decided to analyze the impact of visual aspects in the whitepaper on the amount raised by the ico. To do so, we used a database containing more than 5,200 ICO whitepapers published between 2015 and 2021. Our results show that images have a positive impact on the amount raised by the ICO. As for the graphics, which are more complicated to interpret, we can’t prove any impact on the amount raised by the ICO. Concerning the presence of optimism in the text, we can demonstrate that when the text of the whitepaper is too optimistic, readers tend to be more interested in the images, which become more correlated with the amount raised, than when the presence of optimism in the text is low. Once again, we can’t establish a link with graphics, considered to be complex visual aspects. In general, our results show that certain visual aspects of the whitepaper are a good indicator of ICO success.