Wikipedia:Notability (cryptocurrencies)

This essay describes the current consensus on the notability of cryptocurrencies and other blockchain-related projects.

In summary, it is generally expected that such projects should have received significant and independent coverage from mainstream news sources or other reputable sources. Coverage by news organizations that primarily cover cryptocurrency news is not sufficient to establish notability.

The community has enacted discretionary sanctions on the topics of blockchain and cryptocurrencies, due to floods of spam on the subject. An effective defence against this is high-quality sourcing.

Notability criteria

See also: Wikipedia:Notability § General notability guideline

It is expected that the notability of cryptocurrencies or blockchain-related projects be established on the basis of the following sources:

• In relation to news sources, notability should be demonstrated on the basis of significant coverage in mainstream reliable news sources. "Mainstream sources" are understood to be the ones that cover a wide variety of subjects (such as The New York Times) or a broad topic area (such as financial news, e.g. the Financial Times), and which have an audience that extends beyond a specific industry or affiliation. However, the mere mention of a cryptocurrency or blockchain-related project in such publications is not sufficient to establish its notability: the sources provided still have to offer significant coverage of the project in question, per WP:CORPDEPTH.
• Crypto-centric news organizations generally do not provide coverage that can be considered "independent" from their subject for the purposes of WP:ORGCRITE. Accordingly, they generally cannot count towards establishing the notability of a cryptocurrency or blockchain-related project. In any case, editors have often cast doubts on the reliability of crypto-centric publications: if a publication is considered unreliable, it can neither be used to establish the notability of a subject, nor to source claims in the article itself.
• In relation to other sources, ordinary considerations apply. In particular, coverage in books that have been published by reputable publishers, or articles in scholarly publications that meet the criteria of WP:SCHOLARSHIP may count towards the notability of cryptocurrencies and blockchain-related projects. Self-published sources, such as articles published on Medium or tweets, generally do not count towards notability. User-generated content and publications by Forbes contributors should not be used on Wikipedia articles.

Cryptocurrencies and blockchain-related projects fall under the ambit of WP:Notability (organizations and companies), which is a guideline that applies to Wikipedia articles that are dedicated to an organization, a product, or a service. According to WP:ORGCRITE:

A company, corporation, organization, group, product, or service is notable if it has been the subject of significant coverage in multiple reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject.

These criteria generally follow the general notability guideline with a stronger emphasis on quality of the sources to prevent gaming of the rules by marketing and public relations professionals. The guideline, among other things, is meant to address some of the common issues with abusing Wikipedia for advertising and promotion. As such, the guideline establishes generally higher requirements for sources that are used to establish notability than for sources that are allowed as acceptable references within an article.

Individuals in the blockchain field will fall under the relevant notability guidelines for persons, and most often for living persons.

Acknowledged presence of COI

Cryptocurrencies are often investments and conflict of interest issues are the norm in this genre of articles. Some editors may seek to promote their investments by creating a Wikipedia page for them, or by adding promotional content to an article to make the project sound more important, viable, etc. Acknowledging this, it is important that Wikipedia editors be strict and uniform in their application of Wikipedia's larger overall goals.

Sources

Press sourcing

Press sourcing should be kept to mainstream press sources; the financial press has covered cryptocurrency closely since 2017, for example.

Crypto-centric news organizations

The vast majority of news coverage about cryptocurrencies and blockchain-related projects is published by media outlets that focus exclusively on this specific area, such as CoinDesk and Bitcoin Magazine.

These publications are overwhelmingly enthusiastic about cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, and generally cover crypto-related projects in a positive light, without offering a neutral and independent assessment of their promises or objectives. As a result, crypto-centric publications are highly promotional and rarely offer coverage that is truly independent from their subject matter.

In addition, many articles in such outlets are company-sponsored, based on the company's marketing material, or are effectively undisclosed advertising. Many crypto outlets offer unlabeled pay-for-play coverage. No crypto outlet bars its journalists from owning financial instruments they write about. (Compare mainstream financial press, such as FT or Bloomberg, which normally bars journalists from having any interest in instruments or companies they write about.) CoinDesk directly encourages its contributors to have such COI, as "skin in the game."

Two requests for comments, in 2018 and 2019, have established the consensus that CoinDesk is generally unreliable, should not be used for notability and should generally be avoided as a source. More broadly, there is strong consensus that cryptocurrency-focused sources (such as CoinDesk or Bitcoin Magazine) should generally not be used on Wikipedia articles.

Academic sources

Academic sources should be peer-reviewed journal articles, from quality journals (e.g., not journals on WP:CITEWATCH).

Unreviewed preprints have only the status of blog posts, and would not normally be a usable source.

Conference proceedings are common and barely-reviewed in the cryptocurrency field, and would not normally be a usable source. These are best replaced with peer-reviewed journal articles.

Books

Beware of books published by low-quality publishers who cannot be assumed to have closely reviewed the material.

Books may not be trustworthy for assertions outside the division's usual responsibility, e.g. using a book published by a publisher's business division for technical claims about a given blockchain. Approach with caution.

Check for authors' conflicts of interest when using book sources, e.g. when a chapter cited from a book turns out to have been written by a cryptocurrency project's promoter.

Arguments to avoid

See also: Wikipedia:Inherent notability, Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions, and WP:NOTINHERITED

When discussing the notability of cryptocurrencies, it is unhelpful to advance the following arguments:

• Market data, such as the market capitalization of the cryptocurrency, its current "rank", the fluctuations of its market price or its daily trading volume.
• Association with celebrities, famous scientists or notable venture capital funds. In fact, given the frequency with which cryptocurrencies get promoted by celebrities and influencers in return for payment, claims of endorsement by such individuals should be treated with doubt. Check whether there is genuine independent notability, and not only paid-in promotion.
• The listing of the cryptocurrency on a large exchange, such as Coinbase or Binance.
• A large following on social media.
• Projections of what a future project might be, or the dates of future planned software releases, etc. See: WP:CRYSTAL

See also

• WP:SPIP

• WP:FRINGE