So, What’s a Yellow Paper?

We get many inquiries for collaboration from companies, and the first thing they give us is their white paper. But, more importantly, what is their yellow paper? Well, the main difference between a white paper and a yellow paper is that the white paper outlines the key methods involved, but the yellow paper gives the mathematical detail.

The classic “White Paper” was, of course, written by Satoshi Nakamoto:

In just 11 pages, Satoshi broke all the rules of the way we traded with currency. It was all there, and nothing was missing. It used ECDSA for digital signatures, and where any citizen on the planet could create their own currency wallet, and then, almost instantly trade (well, it took around 10 minutes for the actual transfer to happen). Okay. We now see its flaws, especially in its relative slowness and its proof of work method, but it has changed our world.

But, what about Yellow papers? For that we turn to Ethereum, and where Vitalik Buterin published its white paper in 2013, and, in 2014, Dr. Gavin Wood published the yellow paper. Vitalik showed the vision, while Gavin defined the science [here]: