"Whitepaper", for a long time, meant sort of the opposite of "academic paper." They weren't published in refereed conferences and journals and were usually publ

"Whitepaper", for a long time, meant sort of the opposite of "academic paper." They weren't published in refereed conferences and journals and were usually published by corporations or governments but they resembled academic work in their contributions. Something like the original BTC paper is a good example. It wasn't published in a conference or journal, but the level of rigor and the scale of the contribution is similar to what would be published in a conference or journal. I think the crypto community was the end of it. Now "we are launching $CoolCoin" gets called "whitepaper."