Cointelegraph

Style Guide

2022 Edition
 Cointelegraph Style Guide

All text herein is exemplary unless marked otherwise.

Table of contents
Headlines
Deks
Subheadings
Titles cheatsheet
Quotes cheatsheet
Describing people and companies
Naming companies and products
Abbreviations and acronyms
Usernames and board names
Government bodies
Cryptocurrencies
Fiat currencies
Dates
Time
Numbers
Symbols
Measurements
Countries and locations
Directions and regions
Profanity
Gender neutrality

Formatting
American English vs. British English
Linking sources and tags
Infographics
Italics
Books

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Captions
Reference numbers
Citations

Punctuation
Apostrophes
Colons
Emdashes
Endashes
Hyphens
Oxford comma
Parentheses
Quotes: Punctuation
Semicolons

Sentence structure
Essential clauses
Nonessential clauses
Conjunctions
Equal adjectives
Tense
Insertion
Bullet points
Quotes: Editing
Quotes: Formatting

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Headlines
Only the first word, proper nouns and names are capitalized. Headlines are written in
sentence case and should be between 50 and 100 characters, with the ideal length being
60 to 70 characters. Keywords are better placed at the beginning of the headline. U.S., U.K.
and U.N. are expressed as US, UK and UN. “Thousand,” “million” and “billion” are
abbreviated as K, M and B. Numbers are written numerically (e.g., 3 instead of three). Use
single quotation marks for quotes and composition titles. A capital letter follows colons and
emdashes. All capitalization, spelling and formatting of terms remain the same as they are
in the Cointelegraph Glossary. Company names beginning with a lowercase letter may
remain so if it is the first word in a headline. When attributing a quote or statement, use a
colon if the name comes before the statement and an emdash if the name comes after.

● Blockchain’s need for speed brings new tools to the crypto industry

● Stairway to scarcity: Bitcoin sentiment to rise despite halving impact

● eBay denies rumors it will start accepting crypto, despite advertising at crypto event

● Smoke and mirrors as mainstream banks discourage clients from crypto

● Blockchain mends medical supply chain to counter COVID-19 challenges

● Miner survivability post-halving: A hash rate comparison

● FBI director: Russia overestimates its ability to bypass US sanctions using crypto

● Bitcoin ‘could easily see $30K’ with stocks due to 30% drawdown in 2022 — Analyst

Numbers
Use numerals for numbers, including those below 10:

● Kazakhstan sets eyes on top 3 spot for global Bitcoin mining

● TikTok sends Dogecoin price to 2-year high as Twitter says ‘Be smart’

● Bitcoin: 3 reasons market strategist Lyn Alden is ‘increasingly bullish’

Abbreviate “Thousand,” “million,” “billion” and “trillion” as K, M, B and T, respectively.

● 1inch users on Optimism to receive airdrop of 300K OP tokens

● Marathon reports $80M exposure to bankrupt mining firm

● Crypto markets tag $3T combined market cap for first time

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Composition titles
For composition titles typically expressed in italics, such as books, TV series and podcasts,
single quotes are used to set the title apart from the headline. Bonus points for working
the title into the headline.

● Getting into the ‘Financial Services Revolution’ with Alex Tapscott

○ The book’s title is Financial Services Revolution.

● Winklevoss biographer writes newest, BTC-heavy episode of ‘Billions’

Deks, Metas and Socials

Deks
Deks should highlight the article’s main points and be between 100 and 180 characters,
with the optimal length being less than 140 characters. They should form complete
sentences and be punctuated with a final period. Titles typically expressed in italics should
be expressed in double quotation marks.

● Grayscale’s exponential growth signals institutional demand for Bitcoin and other
digital assets.
● Don Tapscott’s new book “Supply Chain Revolution” details how blockchain is
transforming the trillion-dollar supply chain industry.

Meta descriptions
Meta descriptions should be between 120 and 160 characters. If the name of a
company/platform is also an active URL, the domain name is written as a separate word (e.g., Crypto.com
→ Crypto .com) or a zero-width space is inserted (e.g., Crypto.com → Crypto.com).

Social posts
Social posts should be 280 characters or less and include a punctuation mark at the end. If
the name of a company/platform is also an active URL, the domain name is written as a
separate word (e.g., Crypto.com → Crypto .com) or a zero-width space is inserted (e.g., Crypto.com
→ Crypto.com).

Subheadings
In contrast to headlines, U.S., U.K. and U.N. are used for subheadings, double quotation
marks are used for quotes, and high dollar amounts should be written out instead of

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abbreviated with K, B or M. Similarly to headlines, they do not finish in a period and a

capital letter follows colons and dashes.

● U.S. regulators at it again: Another $100 million project struck down

Titles cheatsheet
A cheat sheet for formatting all titles in text. All capitalization, spelling and formatting of
terms, products and companies remain the same as they are in the Cointelegraph
Glossary.

Acts, laws and regulations

Capitalized, no italics or quotation marks.

● Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham has introduced the Eliminating Abusive and
Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies Act, otherwise known as the EARN IT
Act.
● For content authors and advocates of greater data privacy more broadly, the 2018
implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation, otherwise known as
GDPR.
Russian and Ukranian laws are an exception, they are capitalized and expressed in
quotation marks.
● A branch of the Russian federal government has recently published a draft of new
litigation called “On Digital Financial Assets,” which is focused on enforcing strict
cryptocurrency laws in the country.

Blockchain consensus protocols

Hyphenated, no capitalization.

● The blockchain was reportedly built on a proof-of-authority consensus algorithm.

Books
Italics.

● It’s essential to note that there is no clear consensus on the definition of distributed
ledger technology and blockchain technology, as clarified in Chapter 1, Part 2 of
Blockchain: Everything You Need to Know

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Book chapters
If the chapter name is only defined by a number, it is capitalized. If it contains a word or
words other than “chapter,” use double quotation marks.

● In Chapter 6, Andreas Park illustrated how the hard information stored on a

blockchain can improve the standing of a historically corrupt country.

● Blockchain Revolution’s third chapter, “Reinventing Financial Services,” analyzes the

shift from stock exchanges to blockchain-based exchanges.

Films
Italics.

● The once-illustrious actor appeared in 2002 film The Salton Sea.

Games
Capitalized, normal text.

● The partnership will provide Unikrn users access to Atari’s well-known games such
as Centipede, Pong and Asteroids.

Journals
Italics.

● A study in Renewable & Sustainable Energy Reviews published last year provided
systematic analysis of over 140 blockchain research projects and startups in the
energy sector.

Localized versions of Cointelegraph

Italics.

● According to Cointelegraph Brasil, the central bank initially considered blockchain

technology for the system.

Magazines, news outlets and newspapers

Capitalized, normal text.

● Following user feedback, The New York Times team realized that in addition to
knowing when the picture was taken, readers are also interested in knowing where
it appeared earlier.

Market tools and indexes

Capitalized if copyrighted, coined or contains a person’s name; not capitalized otherwise.

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● For the rest of the year and beyond, however, the Mayer Multiple considers moves
through $15,000, $21,000 and then $30,500 to be probable.

● Referring to other indicators helps provide a better picture of the prevailing trend
and a glance at the relative strength index shows the indicator flat in oversold
territory.

● Another aspect worth exploring is the relationship that may or may not exist
between Bitcoin’s Fear and Greed Index and its price.

Music
Band name capitalized, album title in italics, song titles in quotation marks.

● The Beatles’ White Album contains the song “Helter Skelter.”

News services

Capitalized, as normal text.

● Apart from Lloyd’s, a report by Bloomberg noted that other major players in the
insurance industry are also paying attention to cryptocurrency insurance.

NFT titles and collections

Capitalized, no quotation marks — double quotation marks can be used to provide clarity,
if needed, that the text refers to the NFT project and not something else.

● The three projects in question are Tendies and CryptoPunks copycats CryptoPhunks
and CryptoZunks.

● The NFT project is dubbed “Bitcoin” and pays homage to the premier
cryptocurrency.

Pieces of art

Capitalized, double quotation marks.

● The painting depicts the French protest group Le mouvement des Gilets jaunes in a
reinterpretation of Eugene Delacroix’s work “La Liberté guidant le peuple” (Freedom
leading the people).

Podcasts and Twitter Spaces shows

Italics.

● He was featured on the weekly podcast The Blockchain Show.

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● NFT Steez airs live on Twitter Spaces every other Friday.

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Projects

Capitalized, normal text.

● Although not-for-profit projects such as the Internet Archive Foundation are

valiantly trying to preserve the entire web for future generations, this has been
described as an “impossible task.”

Research, reports and studies

Double quotation marks, maintain original capitalization and spelling.

● According to the “2020 Incident Response and Data Breach Report” from
cybersecurity firm Crypsis Group, ransomware attacks have more than doubled in
the last two years.

● A research paper titled “Lightning Network: a second path towards centralisation of

the Bitcoin economy” concluded that the network has security vulnerabilities due to
increased centralization.

○ Maintain the original spelling of the title, even if it is not in American English.

Television series
Italics.

● William Shatner, the former fictional Captain Kirk in sci-fi series Star Trek, has
schooled a crypto troll in defense of Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.

Television news programs

Capitalized, normal text.

● The chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, also went on CBS’s 60 Minutes
to say there is infinite money.

Theories

Capitalized if renowned, copyrighted or coined, not capitalized otherwise.

● It would be interesting to consider how Keynes’ quantity theory of money could

impact the real estate industry and corporate finance in general.

● The Aragon Court uses a game theory method known as a Schelling Game in order
to provide a subjective outcome to the dispute.

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Tests

Capitalized if renowned, copyrighted or coined, not capitalized otherwise.

● As with many ICOs, the SEC has taken the stance that under the Howey Test, such
offerings constitute the sale of unregistered securities.

Vessels

Capitalized, normal text.

● In the U.S., the first major COVID-19 outbreak occurred aboard the American
Dynasty.

Websites

Capitalized, normal text.

● The Russian-language forum was the first non-English section on Bitcointalk.

YouTube channels

Italics, except for Cointelegraph’s channel.

● The 99Bitcoins YouTube channel.

● Check the full discussion on the Cointelegraph YouTube channel.

Quotes cheatsheet
Rules for changing written and verbal quotes
Quotes: Formatting
● Capitalizing a word if it is the first word of a quote presented as the focus of a
sentence.
● Lowercasing a word if it is the first word of a quote that is presented as part of
another sentence.
● Capitalizing the first word of a new phrase.

Quotes: Punctuation
● Changing double quotation marks to single quotation marks.
● Adding a comma or a period to the last word of a quote.
● Changing hyphens to endashes/emdashes or vice versa.
● Removing double spaces.

Quotes: Editing

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● Removing text and adding [...] to indicate it.

● Adding additional text in brackets to provide clarity.
● Correcting spelling or grammatical errors affecting the meaning or readability of a
sentence.
● Changing fully capitalized quotes to standard capitalization if otherwise distracting
to readers.
○ This does not apply to tweets. See below.

Profanity
● Profanities, if their inclusion is important, are not edited.

Verbal quotes
Verbal quotes should be formatted according to Cointelegraph style. Filler words or
phrases such as “um,” “uh,” “so,” “sort of,” “kind of” and “you know” should be omitted when
not adding any substance to the sentence.
● They can forget things; they can be ● You know, today you get on a
absent-minded or, you know, just commercial plane and, you know,
not connect the dots sometimes. apart from the takeoff and landing,
pretty much the computer controls
the flight of a plane.

Written quotes published online

Quotes accessible elsewhere on the internet can be condensed but should only be edited
to correct obvious, distracting errors. If a previously published quote is edited, the
following disclaimer should be added: Quotes in this article taken from previously published
sources have been lightly edited.

Editing Tweets
● The same rules apply as for written quotes published online, but in addition, you
may make the following changes:
○ Removing line breaks.
○ Adding periods to the end of each separate line if not present.
● Keep all capitalization and use of hashtags the same.

Describing people and positions

Do not link a person’s tag to their name, only either their Cointelegraph Top 100 page or
author’s page. Cointelegraph has two main formulas for introducing people and their
companies together: long descriptions and short descriptions. Excluding CEO, positions are
not capitalized or abbreviated when used as a general description of someone’s
responsibilities. Government, military, religious and royal positions are capitalized when
used as a title directly preceding someone’s name. “Dr.,” “M.D.,” etc., are omitted unless
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referring to medical doctors. Initials are followed by a period and a space. Non-English
letters such as accents and umlauts must be used if they are part of the person’s name.

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Long description
Better for emphasizing the company’s role in its industry.

Formula: Name, position at Company — company’s position in the market — continuation

of sentence.

● Alejandro Beltrán, country manager of Buda — one of the largest cryptocurrency

exchanges in Latin America — spoke with Cointelegraph about the regulatory legal
framework in the country.

● To gain a better understanding of how popular digital currencies actually are in the
region, Cointelegraph reached out to Evgen Verzun, a Ukrainian crypto expert who
is also the founder of Hypersphere AI — a decentralized cybersecure network and
computation platform.

● To this point, Will Reeves, the CEO of Fold — a privacy-focused platform for crypto
payments — told Cointelegraph that even though Bitcoin is perceived as being more
volatile than most fiat currencies, the crypto asset is not subject to the same
inevitability of inflation as the U.S. dollar, the Russian ruble or the euro.

● On the subject, Sky Guo, the CEO of Cypherium — an enterprise-focused blockchain

platform — told Cointelegraph that he believes Bitcoin’s amazing comeback power
lies solely with the fact that it makes use of a deflationary design model.

● Finally, Jasper Tay, the chief operating officer at Plutus — a crypto debit card
provider — commented on the volatility aspect of Bitcoin.

Short description
Better for keeping sentences succinct and for sentences that already contain emdashes
and/or commas.

Formula: Name, position at [company descriptor] Company, continuation of sentence.

● Regarding the matter, Bill Herrmann, CEO of alternative investment banking firm
Wilshire Phoenix, is of the opinion that Bitcoin’s current negative movement can
largely be attributed to the instability of the traditional market.

● Similarly, Simon Peters, an analyst at trading and multi-asset brokerage company

eToro, believes that the aforementioned correlation is primarily being witnessed
due to the ongoing pandemic underlying the traditional and crypto markets.

● To get a better understanding of the matter, Cointelegraph reached out to Gregory

Klumov, the CEO of euro-backed stablecoin issuer Stasis.

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● Finally, Jasper Tay, the chief operating officer at crypto debit card provider Plutus,
commented on the volatility aspect of Bitcoin.

Known description

Only for more well-known organizations that can be described quickly and easily. Use “the.”

● Finally, Eric Benz, CEO of the Changelly crypto-trading platform, told Cointelegraph
that...

No description

● On a somewhat related note, Nokenchain CEO Guillaume Thuillet told Cointelegraph

that…

After first reference

All people after the first reference are referred to by their last name only, unless there has
been a large amount of text and other people mentioned between the person’s first
mention and second mentions. In this case, they can be referred to either by their last
name or with their company name.

● Braathe from IBM further noted that high-priced goods will likely result in less food
waste and illness.

● In regard to Civic’s Health Key, Favvas of Circle Medical commented that a challenge
moving forward will be meeting the varying policies between employers.

● Crypto Capital has been in operation since 2013, with Braveno’s Grønnebæk
claiming that Reddit user u/bitfan2013 was the firm’s founder.

Government, military, religious and royal positions

Government, military, religious and royal positions are capitalized when used as a title
directly before someone's name. They are not capitalized when used as a general
description of someone's responsibilities.

● Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele wants to offer citizenship to those who invest in
the small Central American nation.
● Gary Gensler, chairman of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, is
reportedly keen on bright-line regulations for the country’s crypto space.

Names with initials

Initials and particularly middle initials are not usually used with names, except for key
people whose initialized names are well known and in citations for research reports.

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● H. R. Haldeman

● John F. Kennedy

● J. K. Rowling

Chinese names

Sometimes, the order of first and last Chinese names is already switched to suit a Western
audience by the time it gets to Cointelegraph, and sometimes it is not.

Here are three solutions, depending on the name:

1.) By English name:

Chinese people typically choose an English first name for themselves, which makes
names like “Sky,” “Justin” or “Vivienne” easy to pick out as a first name, although
fewer are using them these days.

2.) By syllable:

The vast majority of Chinese last names are one syllable (including names like Zhao,
Huang and Hui), while their first names can be two (e.g., Changpeng, Yifei, Liying,
Xiaoming, Shaofeng, etc.).

3.) Research:

There are some Chinese first names that are also one syllable, e.g., Binance’s Yi He.
In this case, only through research can the first and last names be told apart.

Japanese names

Typically, when a Japanese name is in a Western or English context, the first and last names
have already been switched to the first name-last name format.

Pseudonyms
Pseudonymous people should be introduced as such, with the pseudonym expressed in
double quotation marks on first mention and without on all future mentions. Like all other
names, pseudonyms should be capitalized on all mentions.

● The U.S. Department of Justice indicted Andrey Turchin, known under the
pseudonym “Fxmsp,” with various federal crimes. [...] The Kazakhstan and British
authorities also assisted the U.S. to unseal the indictment against Fxmsp.

● Bitcoin market analyst Filbfilb reveals key similarities between now and late 2016 as
bullish sentiment keeps building for the BTC price.

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○ Regular contributors to Cointelegraph content, such as Filbfilb, do not need to be

introduced as pseudonymous.

Naming companies and products

Generally, follow the preferred name and capitalization of companies and their products,
except in cases of fully capitalized, fully lowercase or abbreviated names.

Do not use a comma before Inc. or Ltd., even if it is included in the formal name.

● Steemit Inc.

● Dreamr Inc.

Do not use symbols such as exclamation points, plus signs or asterisks. They form
contrived spellings that might distract or confuse a reader.

● Yahoo! -> Yahoo

● Toys “R” Us -> Toys R Us

● E*Trade -> E-Trade

● æternity -> Aeternity

Use an “&” only if it is part of the company’s formal name, such as law firms.

● Ernst & Young

Make sure to check if “the” is part of a company’s, newspaper’s or organization’s name:

● According to The New York Times,...

● According to the Financial Times,...

● He is head of research at the Russian Association of Cryptocurrency and

Blockchain’s analytical center.

All caps

● IKEA -> Ikea

● TRON -> Tron

All lowercase

● a16z -> A16z

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● dltledgers -> Dltledgers

● adidas -> Adidas

Mixed

Company names typically beginning with a lowercase letter are still capitalized when at the
beginning of sentences, although this should be avoided where possible.

● eBay ● bZx

● iMac ● dForce

Individually pronounced

● BMW

Acronyms

● NASA

Non-capitalized network names

Network names that are acronyms (pronounced as a new word rather than by individual
letters) are not capitalized.

● Tron (TRX) ● Nem (NEM) ● Tor

● Neo (NEO) ● Iota (MIOTA)

See Cryptocurrencies for more info.

Non-English letters and characters

Cointelegraph does not use letters and characters that do not exist in the modern-day
English alphabet, regardless of whether they are part of a company’s name. However, they
are necessary for people’s names.

● Æternity -> Aeternity

Abbreviations
If there’s a chance the reader won’t recognize an abbreviation, such as an acronym or
initialism, spell it out on the first mention. If the second reference is within proximity (1–2
paragraphs), use the short version on the second mention. If there is no second mention,
the abbreviation does not need to be written. If the abbreviation is not obvious to its
meaning, write the full word and include its abbreviation either in parenthesis or set off by

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commas with an expression such as “, or ABC,” or “, also known as ABC,”. If the full version
is plural, also make the abbreviation plural. For example, “decentralized autonomous
organizations” should abbreviated as “DAOs.”

Abbreviation rules for Countries, states and organizations.

Companies, organizations and projects

First use: Telegram Open Network

Second use: TON

● The serial entrepreneur announced and made moves to release the Telegram Open
Network. However, legal concerns raised against TON have thrown the timeline into
jeopardy.
● The serial entrepreneur announced and made moves to release the Telegram Open
Network (TON). However, legal concerns raised against TON have thrown the
timeline into jeopardy.
First use: Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) ...

Second use: TSX

● Currently trading under the name, “The Bitcoin Fund,” the offering has around 1.5
million Class A “QBTC.U” shares available on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX).

Little-known abbreviations

If the abbreviation isn’t clearly related to the full version, insert the abbreviation in
parentheses or specify with: “, or ABC”:

First use: the Central Bank of Tunisia

Second use: the BCT

● The Central Bank of Tunisia (BCT) denied all claims regarding the development of a
central bank digital currency.
● The Central Bank of Tunisia, or the BCT, denied all claims regarding the
development of a central bank digital currency.

Well-known abbreviations

If the abbreviation or acronym is more well-known than its full form, like API or HTML, it
doesn’t need to be spelled out.

● The financial institutions best leveraging open-banking and APIs will be the market
leaders of tomorrow.
● Overlay networks such as Tor or a VPN can be created based on these protocols.
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Exceptions

If the full term sounds natural written out in a sentence, or if it is in one of the first
sentences about the term in question, then the full term should be written out:

● Notably, most initial exchange offerings are held by projects focused on trading and
investing (over 70%), payments (about 9%) as well as commerce and the Internet of
Things.

If the term’s full name would cause the sentence to sound clunky or awkward, and
particularly if it is being used as an adjective, abbreviate it:

● The efficiencies this creates will be further improved by AI-driven solutions and
mesh networks of IoT applications.

Coins

Use parentheses for token tickers. All future references following such can be either the
token’s full name or ticker.

● The university’s staff then proceeded to send 116.4 Bitcoin (BTC) the next day to the
ransomers’ wallets, receiving the decryption software.
More info on Cryptocurrencies.

Countries, states and organizations

● United States: U.S. ● European Union: EU

● United Kingdom: U.K. ● United Nations: U.N.

● United Arab Emirates: UAE

The United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union are spelled out in full on
first mention except when used as an adjective (e.g., “the U.S. dollar”; “a U.K. firm”), in which
case, they are spelled out in full on the next mention instead. On all references after being
spelled out in full, they are abbreviated to the U.S., the U.K. and the EU unless at the end of
a sentence:

● The project lost a quarter of its asked Tapscott if he had revised

original 28 members, including his views about the Libra project.
giants Visa, Mastercard and PayPal
● The project lost a quarter of its
before the end of 2019, and is
original 28 members, including
facing regulatory headwinds in the
giants Visa, Mastercard and PayPal
United States. Cointelegraph
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before the end of 2019, and is if he had revised his views about
facing regulatory headwinds in the the Libra project.
U.S. Cointelegraph asked Tapscott

Avoid abbreviating U.S. state names. If space constraints make them necessary (such as in
headlines or graphics), use the two-letter form:

Alabama: AL Louisiana: LA Ohio: OH

Alaska: AL Maine: ME Oklahoma: OK

Arizona: AZ Maryland: MD Oregon: OR

Arkansas: AR Massachusetts: MA Pennsylvania: PA

California: CA Michigan: MI Rhode Island: RI

Colorado: CO Minnesota: MN South Carolina: SC

Connecticut: CT Mississippi: MS South Dakota: SD

Delaware: DE Missouri: MO Tennessee: TN

Florida: FL Montana: MT Texas: TX

Georgia: GA Nebraska: NE Utah: UT

Hawaii: HI Nevada: NV Vermont: VT

Idaho: ID New Hampshire: NH Virginia: VA

Illinois: IL New Jersey: NJ Washington: WA

Indiana: IN New Mexico: NM West Virginia: WV

Iowa: IA New York: NY Wisconsin: WI

Kansas: KS North Carolina: NC Wyoming: WY

Kentucky: KY North Dakota: ND

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Usernames and board names

No @ handle for Twitter usernames, but u/Username for Reddit usernames as well as
r/Subreddit. Mention on first reference “Reddit user u/Username” and “the subreddit
r/Subreddit,” then only by the r/Redditsub or u/Username in further mentions.

Twitter

Call people by their preferred Twitter nickname if their URL is not consistent.

● Cryptocurrency chartist Dave the Wave suggested BTC could see a consolidation
period lasting until September, similar to previous bearish trends in late 2019 and
early 2020.

○ This user’s Twitter handle is @davthewave.

● A technical analyst known as Byzantine General said the funding rate of the
perpetual swap contract of BitMEX and open interest show that BTC is not
overbought just yet.

○ This user’s Twitter handle is @ByzGeneral.

If the username is fully capitalized or fully lowercase, capitalize the first letter of each word.

● Cryptocurrency chartist Dave the Wave suggested BTC could see a consolidation
period lasting until September, similar to previous bearish trends in late 2019 and
early 2020.

○ This user’s Twitter screen name is “dave the wave.”

Reddit
● Grønnebæk claimed that Reddit user u/bitfan2013 was the firm’s founder. In May
2013, u/bitfan2013 posted to the r/Bitcoin subreddit probing the community
sentiment regarding…

● Reddit user u/Crypthomie, identified only as a 34-year-old man who is not a United
Arab Emirates citizen, posted to the r/Cryptocurrency subreddit on June 19 stating
that his ex-coworkers had raised $27,400 toward his massive debt.

Other boards and forums

Forum and other board usernames are capitalized in all mentions and expressed with
double quotation marks on the first mention.

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● Joseph Vaughn Perling, known on the forum as “NewLibertyStandard,” was active in

the Russian-language chats on Bitcointalk.

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Government bodies
The full name of all formal governmental organizations is capitalized. Parliament and
Congress should be capitalized when expressed in their full name, with their capitalization
maintained on subsequent and/or incomplete references. “Congress” and “parliament” are
not capitalized in adjectival form or when referring to a legislative body that has another
name but is the same political structure.

● The cryptocurrency project will be subject to two back-to-back hearings in the

United States Congress.

● However, with the ongoing scrutiny surrounding the company’s data collection
methods and internal security protocols, Congress is not only concerned about the
consumer digital footprint, but also Facebook’s entire footprint.

● The draft bill titled “Banning of Cryptocurrency & Regulation of Official Digital
Currencies” is not included in the session agenda issued in India’s lower house of
parliament, Lok Sabha.

● The head of the Iranian parliament’s economic commission, Mohammad Reza Pour-
Ebrahimi, revealed that roughly $2.5 billion had been funneled out of Iran via crypto.

○ The formal name for the Iranian parliament is the Iranian Consultative Assembly

Other forms
Government bodies are not capitalized when referring to more than one, when in their
adjectival forms or otherwise.

● The Royal Bank of Scotland is to host Scotland’s first-ever fintech hub in a move
backed by both the English and Scottish parliaments.

● As with the hearings that have taken place in senates and parliaments around the
world, the ostensible purpose was to determine the risks presented by unregulated
digital currencies.

● The wave of renewed interest was started by a parliamentary group of around 70

members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party who are alarmed about the prompt
development of the digital yuan in neighboring China.

● A United States congressman is the latest working to clarify and determine which
U.S. regulator is responsible for which digital assets.

● Breaking with typical congressional practice, Gosar is presenting the bill solo,
without a co-sponsor.
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 Cointelegraph Style Guide

Departments

Ministry, department, branch and every other formal governmental organization should be
capitalized when with its full name, even if the word order has been switched around. They
are not capitalized when being referred to simply as “the ministry” or “the department,” etc.

● The U.S. Department of State/The U.S. State Department.

● Russia’s Ministry of Education and Science explained that in the new system’s
process, each diamond acquires a digital code that is recorded on a distributed
ledger and shared between all the participants of the chain.

Cryptocurrencies
Cryptocurrencies are expressed in the singular. Include a ticker symbol in parentheses with
the first reference of a token if it does not make the sentence clunky and is not the first
sentence of an article; otherwise, add it to the second reference. If a cryptocurrency’s name
is mentioned twice or more, either the token name (e.g., Bitcoin) or the ticker symbol (e.g.,
BTC) may be used. Only Cointelegraph’s own price indexes are linked to tickers. Tokens
whose names are identical to their tickers are not followed with parentheses and have
different capitalization rules. Trade pairs are expressed with a forward slash.

Cryptocurrency values

All cryptocurrencies are expressed using the token’s ticker symbol and in the singular. If it
is the first mention of a particular cryptocurrency, the full name and ticker symbol are
written as usual.

● With more than 100,000 BTC to its name, MicroStrategy has gone from relative
obscurity in the world of finance to a crypto giant and a well-known firm on Wall
Street.

● Visa’s head of crypto is a self-proclaimed NFT enthusiast and spearheaded the firm’s
move to snap up CryptoPunk #7610 for 49.50 Ether (ETH) in August.

Token tickers
Token tickers must be linked to their price indexes on the Cointelegraph site. If the index
does not exist on the site, do not link anything to the ticker, including its tag.

● Before delving into why Bitcoin (BTC) would see a price hike this year, Lee started his
speech with a nod to the famous comparison between the internet and blockchain.

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 Cointelegraph Style Guide

● Only a few stablecoin projects have survived and continued operations in 2020:
Tether (USDT), TrueUSD (TUSD), Paxos (PAX) and EURS.

Trade pairs

● BTC/USD

● EOS/ETH

● TRX/XRP

Currencies with identical tickers

If a cryptocurrency’s name is identical to its ticker, the price index is linked without
parentheses, and the token is only fully capitalized if each letter is individually pronounced;
otherwise, only the first letter is capitalized.

● EOS ● Dai

● XRP ● Dash

Governance tokens
Governance tokens should be fully capitalized without parentheses, as they do not reflect
their blockchain’s or company’s name. The names of these tokens should be written and
referred to separately from the names of their respective platforms.

● Chainlink’s LINK

● Compound’s COMP

● Algorand’s ALGO

● Yam Finance’s YAM

● Band Protocol’s native BAND token and Chainlink’s LINK rose by 348% and 88%,
respectively.

Fiat currencies
Cointelegraph does not use the symbols of any currency other than the dollar. If necessary
to the context, state the foreign currency in words followed by the U.S. dollar equivalent in
brackets expressed with only the dollar sign and the sum. No currency’s name is
capitalized. Smaller denominations of currencies (cents, pence, kopeks, etc.) are not used.

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 Cointelegraph Style Guide

Necessary to context

● With a modest minimum of 1,000 British pounds ($1,275) in protected assets and
rather flexible terms, the product seems to be geared for retail as well as corporate
investors.

● A man in South Korea reportedly attempted to sanitize 1.8 million won ($1,500) in a
microwave

Other dollar currencies

Use the following abbreviations for the second and further mentions of foreign dollars:

● AU$ Australian dollars ● HK$ Hong Kong dollars

● CA$ Canadian dollars ● NT$ New Taiwan dollars

● SG$ Singapore dollars ● ZW$ Zimbabwe dollars

● NZ$ New Zealand dollars

Values

In values less than 1, the currency’s singular form and a decimal is used. Smaller
denominations of currency such as cents, pence, kopeks, etc. are not used.

● 0.25 euro

● $0.04

Dates
For specific dates, abbreviate the months August through February and spell out the
months for specific dates between the months of March and July. All months are spelled
out in full when only the month and year are used, with no comma between them.

Month and date

Formatted as follows:

● Jan. 1, 2020 ● May 1, 2020

● Feb. 1, 2020 ● June 1, 2020

● March 1, 2020

● April 1, 2020 ● July 1, 2020

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 Cointelegraph Style Guide

● Aug. 1, 2020 ● Nov. 1, 2020

● Sept. 1, 2020 ● Dec. 1, 2020

● Oct. 1, 2020

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 Cointelegraph Style Guide

Month and year

● January 2020 ● May 2020 ● September 2020

● February 2020 ● June 2020 ● October 2020

● March 2020 ● July 2020 ● November 2020

● April 2020 ● August 2020 ● December 2020

In a sentence

● There is no reason the jury trial should not begin as scheduled on July 6, 2020 in
Miami Division.

● One of them told me, “If only instead of partying that night in December 2017, we
would all have been selling...”

Range

If the date range is within the same month, the month name does not need to be repeated.

● Residents of Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod could participate in-person or cast their
votes electronically from June 25 to 30.

On the X-axis of a graph

Expressed as the date, all months abbreviated to three letters and the year abbreviated
with a straight apostrophe.

● 17 Jan '20 ● 17 May '20 ● 17 Sep '20

● 17 Feb '20 ● 17 Jun '20 ● 17 Oct '20

● 17 Mar '20 ● 17 Jul '20 ● 17 Nov '20

● 17 Apr '20 ● 17 Aug '20 ● 17 Dec '20

See Infographics for more formatting.

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 Cointelegraph Style Guide

News, features and markets articles

Use specific dates rather than days of the week to refer to the day on which something did
or will happen. Avoid using expressions like today, yesterday or tomorrow — use the
specific date instead. We use Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) to determine on which date
an event occurs.

● Bitcoin’s third halving event is expected to take place at approximately 7:20 pm UTC
on Monday.

● The world of decentralized finance suffered yet another incident as Chinese lending
platform Lendf.me was drained of almost all its funds on Saturday.

Seasons

Seasons are not capitalized.

● In the spring of 2019, ConsenSys saw a major restructuring of its various operations
to bolster its market presence as it sought $200 million in funding.

● The artist is partnering up with KnownOrigin to test $1 million worth of art using
blockchain technology by the summer of 2020.

Time
If news is not specific to a region, time is expressed in UTC in the 12-hour format with
either am or pm. When specific to a region, the local time is used.

Universal news

● Bitcoin’s third halving event took place at 7:23 pm UTC on Monday.

Region-specific news

Eastern Time is spelled out on the first mention, but abbreviated as ET in lists.

● The New York bank opened its doors for the first time at 9:00 am Eastern Time.

Numbers
Spell out numbers one through nine, with 10 to 999,999 in their numeral form. Excludes
currency values, percentages, decimals, ratios, book figures and indefinite numbers.
Sentences may not begin with a numeral.
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Cointelegraph Style Guide

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 Cointelegraph Style Guide

Formatting

Use the following formatting guideline for numbers:

● One ● 1,000 ● 1 billion

● 10 ● 100,000 ● 1 trillion

● 100 ● 1 million

Ranges

Ranges are expressed with either endashes, the preposition “to,” or the construction
“between x and y.” Symbols such as the dollar and percentage signs are used for both
numbers in the range, and numbers must not be split from their order of magnitude when
in a range.

● Bitcoin mining difficulty is currently at an all-time high, between 110 million and 120
million terahashes per second.

○ Writing “between 110 and 120 million terahashes” splits the number 110 from its
order of magnitude (million), representing a drastically larger range.

● There is a high probability that Bitcoin could rise to as high as $8,000 before moving
to retest the $4,200–$5,300 range.

At the start of a sentence

Sentences must begin with a word, with numeral-and-letter combinations excepted but
better avoided.

● Ninety percent of seafood consumed in the U.S. is imported, yet only 0.1% is
inspected by federal agencies.

● 3D printing is something that has the power to empower business and diversify
industry.

Currency values

● $1 ● 8 euros

● $4 million ● 4 pounds

More guidelines on fiat currencies.

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 Cointelegraph Style Guide

Percentages

Unless at the beginning of a sentence, percentages are expressed in numerals with the
percentage symbol. If the corresponding number is above 999,999, the symbol is optional.

● 1.43%

● 55%

● 1 million percent

Decimals

Use singular nouns after decimals in values less than 1 and the numeral zero before the
decimal point.

● 1.5 tokens

● 0.25 euro

● $0.04

Special symbols

● 1:3

○ Marking a ratio. Use numerals.

● 10 × 13

○ Marking multiplication: Used in mathematical equations.

● >30

○ Marking “greater than”: Used in lists and infographics. No space.

● <30

○ Marking “less than”: Used in lists and infographics. No space.

● +30

○ Marking “more than” or “over”: Used in lists and infographics. No space.

Books and figures

● In Chapter 6 of Financial Services Revolution, Andreas Park illustrated…

● Hence why combining this model with Model 1 is inevitable in such cases.

● Figure 3-2 on page 138, for instance, represents the “Top 10 ICOs of 2017.”

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Cointelegraph Style Guide

More guidelines on books.

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 Cointelegraph Style Guide

In-text lists

● “I’d like to share four lessons in DAO de-leadership, which correspond with the four
aspects required to realize the purpose of a successful DAO: 1) humble leadership
that writes itself out as the project grows; 2) funding free from special interests; 3)
active development; and 4) strong community participation in decision-making.”

● The study categorized blockchain initiatives within the energy industry in the
following eight categories: 1) metering/billing and security; 2) cryptocurrencies,
tokens and investment; 3) decentralized energy trading; 4) green certificates and
carbon trading; 5) grid management; 6) IoT, smart devices, automation and asset
management; 7) electric e-mobility; and 8) general-purpose initiatives and consortia.

Indefinite and casual references

● Tens of thousands of dollars

● Hundreds of people

Symbols
Cointelegraph generally does not use symbols in text other than the ampersand for
company names and products, the percentage sign, and mathematical symbols for
Cointelegraph Markets and Expert Takes.

Ampersand (&)
Cointelegraph only uses the ampersand when it is part of a company’s name or product.
● A zero-knowledge proofs project known as “Nightfall” is being developed by Big Four
firm Ernst & Young.

Percentage (%)
Used for numbers up to 999,999. Percentages exceeding this number are generally written
in full, and percentages that are at the beginning of a sentence are always written in full.
● The DeFi Composite Index, is seeing its second month of strain, trading down from
its all-time highs of close to $1,200 to under $400, a decline of roughly 60%.

● Consequently, the nation experienced hyperinflation of 230 billion to 500 billion

percent.

Plus (+) and minus (-)

For describing analytical or statistical data in Cointelegraph Markets and Expert Take
articles, the plus and minus signs may be used with percentage signs.

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 Cointelegraph Style Guide

● Oscillations between -10% (slightly bullish) and +10% (slightly bearish) are
considered normal.

Multiplication
When needed for a mathematical equation, Cointelegraph uses the multiplication symbol,
×.

Measurements
Cointelegraph employs the U.S. system of measurement: inches, feet, miles; ounces,
pounds, etc. If necessary to the context, state the foreign measurement of kilometers,
meters, kilograms, etc., then the U.S. system equivalent. The price of gold and other
precious metals is expressed as price per ounce.

Necessary to context

● The virtual world is not endless, and each token within the project is assigned 10
square meters, or 108 square feet.

○ The U.S. equivalent may also be expressed in parentheses.

Not necessary to context

● The hotspots are both low-power wireless access points accessible from up to 10
miles away and nodes on the Helium blockchain.

● The Revero can reportedly travel 37 miles before needing a recharge.

Precious metals

● Gold is currently selling at $1,279 per ounce, meaning that three ounces is around
$3,800, or just $100 more than the price of a single Bitcoin.

● The Hunt brothers’ mass-buying resulted in silver’s market value surging from $6 to
$50 per ounce, Business Insider said.

● Coming in a limited edition of 100 products, Denarium Bitcoin Decennium 2019 is a

device that combines a 1.097-ounce gold bar and a built-in Bitcoin cold storage
wallet.

Countries and locations

For commonly known cities such as Brussels, Berlin and Los Angeles, the state or country
name is not needed. For lesser-known locations, the city is followed by a comma and its
larger geographical area. No comma is needed after the larger geographical area or

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 Cointelegraph Style Guide

country if within a sentence. Countries with plural names are expressed with singular
verbs.

Commonly known locations

● On Jan. 14, the Blockchains for the European Green Deal event was organized in
Brussels by the European Partners for the Environment in partnership with the CCC.

● The worldwide consequences of COVID-19 have thrown a wrench in the vibrant

array of annual blockchain events that usually span from New York to Berlin to Hong
Kong.

Lesser-known locations

● Nori is currently being leveraged by a small group of farmers based in Rock Hall,
Maryland to fight climate change by providing “credits” for carbon stored in the soils
of their farms.

● The owners of a seafood processor in Juneau, Alaska thought they did everything
right to keep their business safely running during the pandemic.

● Back in May, a court in Lagos, Nigeria sentenced a man to death in a conference call,
with Human Rights Watch calling the judgment “inherently cruel and inhumane.”

Country names with plural meaning

Locations with names in the plural are expressed in the singular, as they are each a single
entity.

● The United Arab Emirates is approaching its 2021 deadline...

● The Netherlands is one of Europe’s leaders within the Bitcoin economy.

● The Philippines is known for its strict Know Your Customer and Anti-Money
Laundering regulations.

● The Bahamas is planning to pilot a digital version of the Bahamian dollar in the
Exuma district starting Dec. 27.

○ “The” is always capitalized for The Bahamas

● The Cook Islands has launched its first Green Climate Fund program.

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 Cointelegraph Style Guide

Directions and regions

Lowercase north, south, east, west, northeast, northern, etc., when indicating nautical
direction or a general geographic sense. Capitalize these words when they designate
known regions.

Proper names of countries and states

● Addressing the future of the Irish border, the United Kingdom and the EU agreed to
leave the border between Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland open.

● While the South Korean central bank has no immediate plans to introduce such a
currency, the pilot scheme will ensure that it is prepared to do so in the face of
changing market conditions.

● The city of Sioux Falls now has about 20,000 financial sector jobs, while South
Dakota holds more bank assets than any other state.

Known names of regions

African regions: Asian regions: United States regions:

North Africa East Asia the East Coast
East Africa Central Asia the Midwest
Central Africa South Asia the Northeast
Southern Africa Southeast Asia the Pacific Northwest
West Africa the Middle East Southern California
American regions: West Asia the South
North America European regions: the West
Central America Northern Europe the West Coast
South America Eastern Europe
Latin America Southern Europe
the Caribbean Western Europe
the West Indies the Balkans
the Baltics

● It is certain that Middle Eastern governments will play a central role in the
development of the crypto industry in order to ensure individuals and institutions
adhere to Sharia law.

● The maximum impact of blockchain will be felt in Africa, not in the West.

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 Cointelegraph Style Guide

● Saddled with combating money laundering and terrorist financing, the center is now
working to make Ghana the first country in West Africa to publish its national risk
assessment.

● To navigate through the complexities surrounding crypto regulation in the region,

here’s a guide covering the majority of Eastern European countries, from Russia to
Macedonia.

● The oil-rich Central Asian country expects the total amount of money invested in
local crypto mining operations to double by the end of 2020 and attract $738 million
over the next three years.

Nautical direction

● GCT wants to use the platform to improve visibility on the cargo supply chain to the
east and west coasts of North America.

● Tech Mahindra, the IT subsidiary of Indian conglomerate Mahindra Group, is

launching a blockchain accelerator together with the government of the southern
state of Telangana.

Profanity
Cointelegraph does not generally use profanity in its own writing; however, it is permitted
in coin names, usernames, particularly catchy headings/subheadings and quotes.
Derogatory slurs should never be used by Cointelegraph writers, but if we quote someone
else’s usage of them, they should be edited using dashes (---).

● Bullish on Bitcoin and XRP, bearish on bullshit

● For some Bitcoiners, the trend is a way of killing two birds with one stone —
supporting the Tor Project and getting rid of “shitcoins.”

○ The use of the term “shitcoin” should only be in reference to others’ use of it.

● A plethora of adult industry tokens have been launched over the years, including
Titcoin, Jizzcoin, Bitcoin Adult, Bunny Coin, Fuckcoin, Sexcoin, Pinkcoin, WankCoin,
Model-X coin and Kencoin.

● Comedian Bill Burr: ‘I’m getting Bitcoin! Fuck this!’

● Keith Gill, better known by his Reddit username u/DeepFuckingValue, will also
speak.

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 Cointelegraph Style Guide

Gender neutrality
Sentences can almost always be edited to avoid the use of gender-based pronouns for
persons of unknown gender. The person can be named by position or role, the subject can
be made plural, the passive voice can be used, or the sentence can be rephrased. Inclusive
language is used to refer to all humans.

Naming the person by their position/role (trader, cashier, doctor, etc.)

● For example, you walk into a liquor ● For example, you walk into a liquor
store. Both you and the cashier store. Both you and the cashier
have mobile devices with a have mobile devices with a
preinstalled identity verification preinstalled identity verification
service. United States law prohibits service. United States law prohibits
her from selling alcohol to persons the sale of alcohol to persons
under the age of 21. Technically, under the age of 21. Technically,
she does not need to know your the cashier does not need to
name, your social security number know your name, your social
or even your birthday. security number or even your
birthday.

Making the subject plural

● At a very basic level, the job of any ● At a very basic level, the job of
chief financial officer is to ensure chief financial officers is to
that his/her organization has ensure that their organizations
enough liquidity to cover daily and have enough liquidity to cover
monthly expenses and invest daily and monthly expenses and
whatever funds are left over to invest whatever funds are left over
maximize returns for the to maximize returns for the
company. company.

● A cryptocurrency trader with a ● Cryptocurrency traders with a

large stockpile of XRP in his or her large stockpile of XRP in their
portfolio can disadvantage the portfolio can disadvantage the
market by dumping a large market by dumping a large
quantity of the token, thereby quantity of the token, thereby
crashing its value. crashing its value.

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 Cointelegraph Style Guide

Using the passive voice

● He implemented a new backlog ● A new backlog system was

system in 2014. implemented in 2014.

○ Determine first whether mentioning the pronoun is truly vital to the meaning of
the sentence.

Third-person plural pronoun

The third-person plural pronoun can be used to indicate a person whose gender is not
known.

● A technical analyst known as Byzantine General said the funding rate of the
perpetual swap contract of BitMEX and open interest show that BTC is not
overbought just yet. They said: “At the peak of the last rally in February, there were a
lot of very clear signs that the market was overleveraged and overbought. But at the
moment we don’t really have that.”

● Under this belief, could it be that Nakamoto actually “growth-hacked” their way to
success?

Inclusive language

Cointelegraph uses gender-neutral words when referring to humanity in general.

● From finding new ways to make money smarter to communicating with each other,
humankind is reliant on technology companies to provide these services for us.

Formatting

American English vs. British English

Cointelegraph follows American English standards in spelling, punctuation and general
word usage. Companies and other collective nouns are expressed with singular verbs.
Punctuation in quotes may be changed to reflect American English, while British words
should be left as is.

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 Cointelegraph Style Guide

Grammar

Collective nouns such as “data,” “country,” “team,” “company,” as well as country and
company names are expressed with a singular subject-verb agreement, as they are each a
single entity. When referred to as a subject, use “it” rather than “their.”

● Telegram ceased its support of the test network for TON, but that hasn’t deterred
the community from keeping the open-source project going.

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 Cointelegraph Style Guide

Spelling

Generally, American English prefers –ize (not –ise), –er (not –re), –or (not –our), –nse (not –
nce), –eling/–eled (not –elling/–elled).

American English British English

amid amidst

among amongst

benefited benefitted

burned burnt

canceled/canceling cancelled/cancelling

center centre

centralized/decentralized centralised/decentralised

color colour

defense defence

Dr. Dr

emphasized emphasised

enrollment enrolment

favor favour

favorite favourite

forward forwards

fulfill fulfil

gray grey

have gotten have got (past perfect)

incentivize incentivise

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 Cointelegraph Style Guide

in regard to/regarding as regards

installment instalment

learned learnt

license licence

Mr. Mr

Mrs./Ms. Mrs/Ms

neighbor neighbour

offense offence

organize/organization organise/organisation

program programme

realize realise

toward towards

traveled/traveling travelled/travelling

vs. vs

while whilst

willful wilful

Punctuation

Use double quotation marks rather than single, unless it is a quote within a quote or
headline. In articles, quotes “should look like this,” not like ‘this’, or “this”. Always place
commas and periods before the closing quotation mark:

● “The resulting bill, ‘On Digital Financial Assets,’ has gone through several editions,
but it never got close to regulating the most pressing matters.”

● “It’s really different to be in a chat room with your neighbors just talking about food
and water,” she said, “That’s a really different experience than, ‘I’ve got memes and
GIFs.’”

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Periods are used for Mr., Mrs., Ms., vs., Dr., Ph.D., etc.

Word usage

If a word sounds particularly British, it probably is. Look for generic alternatives such as
“stunned” instead of “aghast” in instances such as: “There are politicians out there who are
aghast at the negative attitude.”

Linking sources
Links to Cointelegraph content should be placed on click-enticing phrases, while links to
external sources are generally placed on the most relevant verb in the sentence. Tags are
not used in text, but Cryptopedia and Explained articles are placed on their corresponding
nouns in thematically relevant articles. Do not place two separate sources directly next to
each other. A person’s name should only be linked to their page on the Cointelegraph Top
#100. A word’s contraction or possessive form should be included in the link (e.g. Europe’s),
but commas and periods cannot be linked.

Links to Cointelegraph articles

When linking to Cointelegraph articles, place the source link on phrases to improve visibility
and encourage recirculation. The words holding the link should be enticing and relate to
the scope of the Cointelegraph article. If there are multiple links to Cointelegraph content
in one sentence, include sufficient space between them so as not to overwhelm readers. A
minimum of three and a maximum of eight words should hold a link.

● In the latter half of April, Cochran ● In the latter half of April, Cochran
composed a 50-tweet-long composed a 50-tweet-long
rationale for ETH 2.0 rendering rationale for ETH 2.0 rendering
one of the largest “economic one of the largest “economic
shifts” society has ever witnessed. shifts” society has ever witnessed.

● By January 2020, Bitmain’s market which will essentially cut the

share by hash rate had ostensibly amount of BTC awarded to miners
dropped from around 75% to 66%, by half.
while an additional report came
● By January 2020, Bitmain’s market
out suggesting that the mining
share by hash rate had ostensibly
titan has plans to reduce its
dropped from around 75% to 66%,
workforce by another 50% prior to
while an additional report came
the upcoming Bitcoin halving,

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 Cointelegraph Style Guide

out suggesting that the mining which will essentially cut the
titan has plans to reduce its amount of BTC awarded to miners
workforce by another 50% prior to by half
the upcoming Bitcoin halving,

Links to external sources

For links that navigate readers to external sources, do not place source links on the
auxiliary verb, only the main verb:

● The total damage was estimated at

$1 billion. ● The total damage was estimated at
$1 billion

● One year later, Cyber Threats

● One year later, Cyber Threats
Reports by the European Union
Reports by the European Union
Agency for Network and
Agency for Network and
Information Security started to
Information Security started to
include ransomware as a separate
include ransomware as a separate
online threat from malware,
online threat from malware,
offering relevant information and
offering relevant information and
statistics.
statistics

Do not place on prepositions:

● According to Malwarebytes,
hidden cryptocurrency mining has ● According to Malwarebytes,
been steadily holding the lead hidden cryptocurrency mining has
among the most frequently been steadily holding the lead
detected malicious software since among the most frequently
September 2017. detected malicious software since
September 2017.

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Unless those prepositions are part of a phrasal verb:

● On the world stage, most of the work on combating cryptocurrency-related crimes is

carried out by Interpol and Europol.

● A relatively new phenomenon, cryptojacking has quickly turned into one of the most
widespread online threats.

Links to definitions

When a lesser-known or new industry term is used and no Explained article exists yet for it,
an external source detailing the term may be used.

● The emergence of decentralized finance has seen users becoming incentivized to

engage in “yield farming” through staking and lending platforms.

● U.S. tax law has a tax exemption for certain property exchanges called like-kind
exchanges, under Section 1031 of the Internal Revenue Code.

Nouns vs. verbs

Sources can sometimes be clearer on a noun, especially when two sources are used in one
sentence or no viable verbs are available.

● President Trump took many by surprise when he tweeted about Bitcoin.

● President Trump wrote a tweet last night in which he called Bitcoin a scam.

● FOMO has permeated the crypto space thanks to the Bitcoin halving event that is
scheduled to take place in the late spring of 2020.

● He is a figure worth keeping an eye on, especially given his new position as chair of
the Subcommittee on Investor Protection.

Relevance

The position of the link in the example below implies that the source linked refers to the
FATF’s guidance:

● It has been evident that the government of South Korea has been generally
following the direction set forth by the Financial Action Task Force

Here, it implies that the source refers to South Korea following FATF’s direction:

● It has been evident that the government of South Korea has been generally
following the direction set forth by the Financial Action Task Force

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Two links in one sentence

When there are two sources for one sentence, they are better placed on the noun, goals,
effects or opinions regarding the point in question. Prioritize placing sources on dates if
mentioned.

● There were diametrically opposed views regarding the critique’s potential impact on
Bitcoin’s value.

● In January, he also introduced two resolutions seeking to examine virtual currency

markets for fairness and competitiveness.

● Kobayashi received a number of similar deadline extensions in March 2020 and

April 2019.

Three or more links in one sentence

When there are many sources for one sentence, they may remain on the corresponding
nouns if verbs are lacking. Prioritize placing multiple sources on their corresponding dates
if mentioned.

● Each country has its own tax rules. Some, such as Portugal and France, look
favorably on cryptocurrencies, while others like the U.S. and the United Kingdom
take a more conservative approach to the asset.

● The Mt. Gox crypto exchange is known for encountering the largest cryptocurrency
hack in history, losing a total of 1.35 million Bitcoin in two hacks in 2011 and 2014.

Rephrasing

No good spots? Take the following (flawed) example, which has two source links to relevant
news coverage.

● It was her request for a moratorium on Libra’s development back in June that set
the scene for a summer of hearings with David Marcus and Mark Zuckerberg on the
subject, all of which happened under Waters’ purview.

Sentences can be rephrased or added to in order to make relevant space for the link:

● It was her request for a moratorium on Libra’s development back in June that set
the scene for a summer of hearings (one with David Marcus and another with Mark
Zuckerberg) on the subject, all of which happened under Waters’ purview.

○ This solution should only come as a last resort.

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Infographics
As with headlines and subheadings, only the first letter of the title and any proper nouns
are capitalized in infographics’ titles. Data should be represented in the title neutrally
without analysis, opinion or bias — this includes not using the word “correlation.” Dates in
all infographics except on the X-axis of graphs are formatted the same as in text. No dollar
signs.

Titles

● Number of blockchain patents awarded in China and the U.S.

Dates

● Nov. 13, 2020

Dates on the X axis of a graph

Expressed as the date, the month abbreviated to three letters, and the year abbreviated
with a straight apostrophe.

● 17 Jan '20 ● 17 Jul '20

● 17 Feb '20 ● 17 Aug '20

● 17 Mar '20 ● 17 Sep '20

● 17 Apr '20 ● 17 Oct '20

● 17 May '20 ● 17 Nov '20

● 17 Jun '20 ● 17 Dec '20

Dollar signs

To avoid repetition of zeros and the dollar sign on areas such as the Y-axis, text stating “in
millions/billions of dollars” is placed vertically or in the legend of a graph.

Italics
Use italics for localized editions of Cointelegraph, titles of books, journals, films, TV shows
and podcasts, rhetorical questions, internal thought processes and text that is in foreign
languages. If a typically italicized word is within text that is also italicized, it must be un-
italicized. If a typically italicized title is in a headline, it must be in single quotation marks; if
in a dek, it must be in double quotation marks.

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Titles of books, journals, films, television shows, podcasts and Twitter Spaces shows,
YouTube channels and localized versions of Cointelegraph

● The Netflix series Explained recently featured an episode titled “What Are
Blockchains?”

● He was featured on the weekly podcast The Blockchain Show.

● A study in Renewable & Sustainable Energy Reviews published last year provided
systematic analysis of over 140 blockchain research projects and startups in the
energy sector.

● According to Cointelegraph Brasil, the central bank initially considered blockchain

technology for the system.

See the Titles cheatsheet for more info.

Rhetorical questions
● While Libra has been surrounded by everything but good news even before its
launch, crypto watchers should ask themselves: Does Bitcoin depend on Libra’s
success at all?

Internal thought processes

● Any salary is taxed at a certain amount by the state pension fund, so by seeing my
paid taxes, they could calculate my income. Oh, my God, I thought, they aren’t even
trying to hide the fact that they are using a stolen database with the personal data of
everyone in the country.

Foreign languages

● The painting depicts the French protest group Le mouvement des Gilets jaunes in a
reinterpretation of Eugene Delacroix’s work “La Liberté guidant le peuple” (Freedom
leading the people).

Do not use italics for common words and phrases borrowed from another language (e.g.,
vice versa, bona fide, ad hoc, etc.).

Captions
● BTC/USDT 2-hour bearish scenario chart. Source: TradingView

See Captions for more info.

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When not to use italics

● TV news programs

● Academic, statistical or other reports

● For emphasis

Books
Title in italics. On tense: A book presents facts in present time, but the author wrote it.
Chapters and figures are expressed in numerals. If not written out with the title in the first
mention, a book’s subtitle can be later mentioned using quotation marks.

Tense

● The book examines how governments can use the technology to collect taxes,
register voters, issue passports and visas, and maintain the integrity of records.

● “The [June 2019] announcement rattled the doors of many powerful institutions,
from banks and big tech to governments and money transfer services around the
world,” wrote Tapscott in the introduction of Financial Services Revolution.

More on Tense.

Subtitles

● Subtitled “How Blockchain is Transforming Money, Markets, and Banking,” the book
touches upon a far broader base than just financial services.

Chapters

If the chapter name is only defined by a number, it is capitalized and the numeral is used as
if it were a title. If it contains a word or words other than “chapter,” use double quotation
marks.

● In Chapter 6, Andreas Park illustrated how the hard information stored on a

blockchain can improve the standing of a historically corrupt country.

● While the sixth, seventh and eighth chapters shed light on regulation, technologies
that can be combined with blockchain, and how blockchain can be used in
manufacturing, Chapter 9 contains the most impressive use case of blockchain
throughout the entire book.

● Blockchain Revolution’s third chapter, “Reinventing Financial Services,” analyzes the

shift from stock exchanges to blockchain-based exchanges.

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Figures

● Figure 3-2 on page 138, for instance, represents the “Top 10 ICOs of 2017.”

Parts

● It’s essential to note that there is no clear consensus on the definition of distributed
ledger technology and blockchain technology, as clarified in Chapter 1, Part 2 of
Blockchain: Everything You Need to Know.

Captions
Image and infographic captions are expressed in italics and may contain numerals below
10 for market purposes. Sources should not be directly linked to, and the actual name of
the company, person, project, etc. should be used instead of their site’s URL. No period
should follow the source.

● BTC/USDT 4-hour bullish scenario chart. Source: TradingView

● Bitcoin stablecoin supply ratio comparative chart. Source: Glassnode/Twitter

Reference numbers
Reference numbers are only used in research reports. They are superscript numbers
placed in consecutive order outside of the sentence and after its closing punctuation.
Repeated use of a source must have a new number corresponding to the repeat citation.

● The number of major food incidents has decreased by 47%, part of which can be
contributed to the realization of FSMA.26

Citations
Citations are only used in research reports. They are placed in consecutive order of their
reference number at the end of the report. Formatting differs depending on whether the
source is a book, site, scholarly article or report, but share similarities:

● Author names should appear as they are at the source (including initials).

● All citations begin with their corresponding reference number and end with a
period.

● Page number ranges are expressed with an endash.

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● Multiple authors are separated by commas, with “and” preceding the last name on
the list.

Be mindful that all apostrophes and quotation marks are curly, not straight, regardless of
how they appear at the source.

Blog posts
Reference number. Author Name, “Blog Post Title,” Blog Name (blog), Month xx, YYYY. Blog
names containing the word “blog” do not need (blog).

● 16. Matthew Lasar, “FCC Chair Willing to Consecrate XM-Sirius Union,” Ars Technica
(blog), June 16, 2008, http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080616-fcc-chair-
willing-to-consecrate-xm-sirius-union.html.

Books
Reference number. Author Name, Book Title (Publisher’s City: Publisher, YYYY), pg–pg.

● 1. Samuel A. Morley, Poverty and Inequality in Latin America: The Impact of Adjustment
and Recovery (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), 24–25.

Online news service: Author known

Reference number. Author Name, “Article Title,” News Service Name, Month xx, YYYY, URL
link.

● 4. Emma Thomasson. “Carrefour Says Blockchain Tracking Boosting Sales of Some

Products,” Reuters, June 3, 2019, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-carrefour-
blockchain/carrefour-says-blockchain-tracking-boosting-sales-of-some-products-
idUSKCN1T42A5.

Online news service: Author unknown

Reference number. News Media Service. “Article Title,” Month xx, YYYY, URL.

● 3. The Japan Times. “McDonald’s suffers ¥7 billion loss over meat scandal,”
November 6, 2014,
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2014/11/06/business/corporate-business/
mcdonalds-suffers-%C2%A57-billion-loss-meat-scandal/.

Reports
Reference number. Publisher Name, Report Title, (YYYY), accessed Month xx, YYYY, URL.

● 8. Cointelegraph, When Blockchain Meets IoT: Ensuring Food Safety in the 2020s, (2020),
accessed August 21, YYYY, https://cointelegraph.com/consulting/vechain/when-
blockchain-meets-iot-ensuring-food-safety-in-the-2020s.

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Scholarly articles
Reference number. Author Name. “Article Title.” Journal Name journal volume number, no.
issue number (YYYY): pg–pg. doi.

● 1. Hope A. Olson. “Codes, Costs, and Critiques: The Organization of Information in

Library Quarterly, 1931–2004.” Library Quarterly 76, no. 1 (2006): 19–35.
doi:10.1086/504343.

● 2. Rafael Ziolkowski, Gianluca Miscione and Gerhard Schwabe. (2020). “Decision

Problems in Blockchain Governance: Old Wine in New Bottles or Walking in
Someone Else’s Shoes?” Journal of Management Information Systems 37 no. 2 (2020):
316–348. doi:10.1080/07421222.2020.1759974

Punctuation

Apostrophes
Apostrophes are used for contracting and to denote possession. Plural nouns and proper
nouns ending in “s” are followed with an apostrophe when in possessive form, while
singular nouns ending in “s” are followed with an apostrophe and an additional “s.” Avoid
contractions if the full form does not make a sentence clunky. Straight apostrophes are
only used for contracting the year on the X-axis of an infographic.

Proper nouns and names in possessive form ending in “s”

Just an apostrophe.

● U.S. investors in Tezos’ 2017 ICO may be eligible for a $25 million settlement.

● It remains to be seen how labor organizations will respond if Hayes’ prediction

comes to pass.

Singular possessives ending in “s”

An apostrophe and an additional “s.”

● A man hired to fix a business’s IT systems for $1,700 was jailed for 20 months after
stealing $38,000 of cryptocurrency he found while inside the company network.

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● Governments are harvesting data at a time when citizens are already being asked to
sacrifice so many other elements of their civil liberties in the name of preventing the
virus’s spread.

Plural possessives ending in “s”

Just an apostrophe.

● In the short term, the goal of the project is to bring free WiFi into a nearby public
housing project to increase residents’ personal resilience.

● The Winklevoss brothers’ Gemini cryptocurrency custodian and exchange has

obtained a new security qualification.

● Marcus became a crucial figure in July 2019 after he was called in by the United
States Congress to appear in two hearings on consecutive days in order to respond
to the lawmakers’ harsh criticisms.

Colons
Colons are used for introducing a list of items or separating independent clauses where the
second clause illustrates or defines the first. A full sentence following the colon should
begin with a capital letter.

Lists

● The study categorized blockchain initiatives within the energy industry in the
following eight categories: 1) metering/billing and security; 2) cryptocurrencies,
tokens and investment; 3) decentralized energy trading; 4) green certificates and
carbon trading; 5) grid management; 6) IoT, smart devices, automation and asset
management; 7) electric e-mobility; and 8) general-purpose initiatives and consortia.

● “I’d like to share four lessons in DAO de-leadership, which correspond with the four
aspects required to realize the purpose of a successful DAO: 1) humble leadership
that writes itself out as the project grows; 2) funding free from special interests; 3)
active development; and 4) strong community participation in decision-making.”

Incomplete clauses

● The outpouring of academic explanations following the crisis typically shared a

common theme: greed, moral failure and excessive risk-taking within the financial
services industry.

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● Ironically, that is the very basis of Bitcoin: a decentralized economic system free of
intermediaries.

● As Matthew Hayes, CEO of CoinATMRadar, told Cointelegraph, there are two levels
of regulation: federal and state.

● Following bullish remarks from its executives, PayPal partnered with three payment
processors in the space in September 2014: BitPay, Coinbase and GoCoin.

● That’s how our financial system should evolve: by coming together and asking the
question, “What can we do better?”

● But they still failed to really get anything substantively new out of the Facebook CEO,
which leads me to believe one thing: they still don’t completely understand the
bigger picture.

Full clauses

● Nevertheless, there are some noticeable exceptions: Earlier this month, Bitstop
installed one of its machines at the Miami International Airport, one of the largest
airline hubs in the country.

● That forced a stark choice for any business owner in any country: Embrace the shift
to online-first workflows or, most likely, go out of business.

● This week, RT host Max Keiser laid out his prediction for the coming years: The U.S.
will go head-to-head with Iran and Venezuela for the biggest slice of the Bitcoin hash
rate.

Emdashes
Providing a longer pause than a comma, emdashes are typically used for insertion of
opinions, giving emphatic pause and maintaining clarity.

Insertion

● Furthermore, the steep learning curve — not to mention technical talk about hot
and cold wallets — mostly goes over most people’s heads.

● With the significant impact of quantum computing on artificial intelligence —

another important area of prospective research and development for these
companies — this will only further stoke the motivation for discovering new
quantum breakthroughs.

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● However, despite the rapid growth of DeFi applications, a lot remains to be seen as
to whether blockchain itself — the building block of DeFi applications — will be able
to accommodate the transactional demands of the mainstream public.

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Maintaining clarity

Used where commas are also appropriate but may imply a different sentence structure.

● To discuss this notion further, Cointelegraph reached out to Jefferey Liu Xun, the
CEO of XanPool — a fiat-gateway software solution for exchanges, wallets and other
cryptocurrency businesses.

● Cottonwood, a firm that controlled 91 machines in New York as of December 2018,

had a gross annual revenue ostensibly exceeding $35 million — about $385,000 in
cash per machine — and just 13 employees, as per a Bloomberg investigation.

● While numerous outcomes — such as a systemic breakdown, an escalation between

China and the U.S., or even something as simple as an increased appetite toward
risk — could lead Bitcoin higher, there has been no real precedent to allude that it
will.

Emphatic pause

● Other experts warn that the initiative will not necessarily become the universal
model for industry participants, no matter how efficient it might look on paper — at
least not in the near future.

● Let’s face facts here — Facebook just isn’t ready to take on the world of digital
currency. Evidently, seven of Libra’s 28 original partners and former advocates,
including PayPal, Mastercard, Visa and eBay also agree with this sentiment.

● However, the firm declares that support for XRP is still in beta — a fact that could
plausibly compromise the legitimacy of the findings.

● Also, Bitcoin’s developers have to deliver on their promise of speed, transparency

and cost — a big “if.”

When not to use an emdash

● The company is planning a discussion on the challenges of completing Know Your

Customer checks in Africa — and what is being done by prominent companies in the
crypto space to overcome them.

● While shares in Riot Blockchain and Hive Blockchain eclipse Bitcoin’s YTD gains,
other mining firms have not fared so well — with Canaan crashing nearly 70%.

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Endashes
Used for ranges and showing a relationship between two proper nouns.

Ranges
● 15–20 hours per week

○ It is often better to spell out “between X and Y” in the body text.

● There is a high probability that Bitcoin could rise to as high as $8,000 before moving
to retest the $4,200–$5,300 range.

Proper noun relationships

● With the outcome of the Telegram–SEC case all set to be decided by April 30, a
number of crypto pundits are quite eager to see how this entire scenario plays out.

● The U.S.–China trade war

● The Asia–Pacific region

● The London–New York flight route

Hyphens
General rule of thumb: Hyphens are used for joining nouns and prefixes to form an
adjectival form or new verbs. Their purpose is to eliminate ambiguity. This rule has various
exemptions. When adjectives are with adverbs ending in -ly, no hyphen should be between
them.

Common compounds
When hyphenating common compounds or proper nouns consisting of more than one
word, only one hyphen is used.

● A New York-based firm.

● The disruption was noted by Hong Kong-based jewelry retailer Chow Tai Fook.

● The technology is expected to relieve supply chain-related issues.

Prefixes

No hyphen is needed for “re-” and “pre-” if the second component also begins with an “e”:

● reedit
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● reentry

● reemergence

● preestablish

● preemptive

There is generally no need to use a hyphen after a standard prefix, with the following
exceptions:

1.) When the second element of the compound begins with the same letter as that of
the prefix:

● anti-inflammatory

● non-negotiable

○ Compounds that have been normalized via heavy use over time, such as
“unnamed,” “interrelated,” “cooperate” and “coordinate,” are excepted.

2.) To distinguish words that could have two meanings:

● re-collect/recollect

● re-cover/recover

● pre-date/predate

● re-sign/resign

3.) Where the second element begins with a capital letter or is a proper noun

● non-European

4.) When followed by a date or reference to a period of time

● pre-1976

● mid-1990s

● mid-20th century

● Since then, it hasn’t recovered to anything near its pre-crash levels.

● While Bitcoin’s volatility has remained high relative to historical averages, it has only
decreased since its peak in mid-March.

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5.) If the noun or adjective in question is not typically expressed in the opposite sense,
yet is being modified by the prefixes “non-,” “de-,” “un-” or “anti-.”

● non-crypto

● non-event

● non-mainstream

● anti-establishment

● The non-confiscatable characteristic of Bitcoin.

Common prefix compounds

● midsummer

● midwinter

● nonexistent

● nonfungible

● nonstop

● nonessential

● preconfigured

● preconceived

Compound verbs

If a verb contains more than one non-prepositional word, they must be joined by a hyphen.

● Even if governments or hackers try to take the RAIDA down, the currency
supposedly can’t be double-spent, hacked or spied upon.

● The Hunt brothers’ mass-buying resulted in silver’s market value surging from $6 to
$50 per ounce, Business Insider said.

● Under this belief, could it be that Nakamoto actually “growth-hacked” their way to
success?

Compound adjectives

Compound adjectives must be hyphenated, except for “top” — e.g., “top 10

cryptocurrencies.”

● Fortunately for cardholders, the ban proved to be short-lived, as it was lifted after
just three days.
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○ Compound adjective: short + lived.

● The alleged fraud case could accelerate adoption of blockchain-powered financial

transparency solutions.

○ Compound adjective: blockchain + powered; powered by blockchain.

● The capital preservation approach delivers a total return almost four times that of
the performance-chasing approach.

○ Compound adjective: performance + chasing; chasing performance.

● Each pleaded guilty to criminal price-fixing charges after Chicken of the Sea blew the
whistle to avoid paying steep criminal fines.

○ Compound adjective: price + fixing; fixing the price.

Other compounds and noun phrases

When noun phrases and compound adjectives are used to modify a noun, they must be
hyphenated. When preceded by a form of the verb “to be” or when not functioning as an
adjective, noun phrases are not hyphenated.

● The open-source nature of crypto and blockchain innovation is driving global

participation and fostering greater diversity and inclusion.

○ Compound adjective: open + source; the service is open source.

● The primary factor behind predictions for a bullish continuation of Bitcoin in the
near term is its long-term market structure.

○ Noun phrase: long-term; in the long term.

● Layer-two solutions are complex and difficult to develop because they walk a very
thin line between security and convenience.

○ Noun phrase: layer two; on layer two of the blockchain.

Oxford comma
Don’t use the Oxford comma when the series is unambiguous, short or contains only one
conjunction. If one or more of the clauses in a series has a conjunction (“and,” “but,” etc.) or
contains more than a few words, use the Oxford comma. If the reader may need a mental
break or for adding balanced emphasis to each item in the list, the Oxford comma can also
be used.

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Simple series
● Hackers emptied the exchange’s hot wallet, which contained Bitcoin, Ether and XRP.

● A spokesperson from the exchange claimed that the hackers gained access, drained
the account and covered their tracks — all in just 10 minutes.

● A few months later, the organization highlighted blockchain’s significance to the

mining and metals industry in particular, citing less paperwork, faster transactions,
compliance and sustainability among primary reasons.

● The project eliminates the possibility of document forgery by all possible

stakeholders, including financial institutions, ship operators, surveying laboratories
and warehouses.

● The document listed six recommendations for companies, prompting them to take
some time to understand the technology, set realistic expectations and align to
strategic priorities.

Complex series
● The biggest challenge with blockchain and mobile voting systems is the fear of
change, entrenched interests of various big-name players in maintaining the current
status quo, and the threat of hacking and interference.

○ The final comma in this example is needed not only due to the sentence’s
complexity but also because the final part in the series includes two uses of the
conjunction “and.”

● We are witnessing the emergence of new types of blockchains — the so-called

“generation 3.0” — that have begun to roll out. It includes names like Telegram’s
TON, Polkadot, Hedera’s HashGraph, and Dfinity.

○ Without the final comma, the sentence could be read as though Hedera
developed both HashGraph and Dfinity. Ambiguous cases like this can also be
rephrased.

● “Here are some of the leading retailers, merchants and companies that will let you
book flights and hotels, buy coffee or pizza, or even go to space with
cryptocurrencies.”

○ The Oxford comma has been placed here due to the “or” in “coffee or pizza.”

● While numerous outcomes such as a systemic breakdown, an escalation between

China and the U.S., or even something as simple as an increased appetite toward
risk could lead Bitcoin higher, there has been no real precedent to allude that it will.
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Parentheses
Parentheses are used for token tickers, currency and measurement conversions, and
inserting additional information as a (by the way) idea that is not vital to the overall
meaning of the sentence. Parentheses are not used to express or define abbreviations and
acronyms unless they are market tools. See Abbreviations and acronyms for more
information.

Token tickers
Token tickers must be linked to their price indexes on the Cointelegraph site. If the index
does not exist on the site, do not link anything to the ticker, including its tag.

● Before delving into why Bitcoin (BTC) would see a price hike this year, Lee started his
speech with a nod to the famous comparison between the internet and blockchain.

● Only a few stablecoin projects have survived and continued operations in 2020:
Tether (USDT), TrueUSD (TUSD), Paxos (PAX) and EURS.

See Cryptocurrencies for more info.

Insertion of information
● The CEO further explained that On-Demand Liquidity (formerly xRapid) has
accounted for more than $2 billion in transactions since launch.

● Bakkt (pronounced “backed,” referring to “asset-backed securities”) is a digital assets

platform created by ICE.

● It was her request for a moratorium on Libra’s development back in June that set
the scene for a summer of hearings (one with David Marcus and another with Mark
Zuckerberg) on the subject, all of which happened under Waters’ purview.

● Stablecoins had been (and still are) issued by private firms, and many failed to
operate successfully for various reasons.

Insertion of opinion
● Detractors often drum up conjecture using the (mostly baseless) argument of
cryptocurrency’s more nefarious use cases.

Conversion
● The project saw just 71 BTC (about $700,000 at the time) traded in the first 24 hours.

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● The former flight attendant took out a loan during Bitcoin’s all-time high in
December 2017 for 338,000 dirham (approximately $109,000 at the time) with
Emirates Islamic Bank.

● The virtual world is not endless, and each token within the project is assigned 10
square meters (108 square feet).

Market tools
When abbreviated on second and future references, market tools and indicators can be
expressed in parentheses.

● Referring to other indicators helps provide a better picture of the prevailing trend
and a glance at the relative strength index (RSI) shows the indicator flat in oversold
territory.

Quotes: Punctuation
Cointelegraph uses double curly quotation marks for direct quotes, titles of studies,
articles, reports, unfamiliar terms and irony. Periods and commas are always placed inside
the quotation marks. Quotes within quotes are expressed with single quotation marks.

Direct quotes
● A speculator said the practice is “too conservative for inflationary times.”

● “The whole thing is solar-powered,” Byrum said, adding, “It’s a mobile solar-powered
WiFi van that has a 40-foot arm to stick the WiFi antenna up.”

● Munger told CNBC, “Bitcoin reminds me of Oscar Wilde’s definition of fox hunting:
‘The pursuit of the uneatable by the unspeakable.’”

● “It’s really different to be in a chat room with your neighbors just talking about food
and water,” she said, “That’s a really different experience than, ‘I’ve got memes and
GIFs.’”

For formatting quotes within sentences, see Quotes: Formatting.

Correcting punctuation errors

Hyphens can be changed to endashes and emdashes or vice versa, depending on what is
correct. Any double spaces are removed. If a lacking comma construes meaning, it can be
added. Similarly, if a quote is lacking a period, one may be added.

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Composition titles
Russian laws, book chapters and subtitles, song titles, pieces of art as well as research,
reports and studies are expressed with quotation marks.

● A study titled “The Rise and Fall of Meme Culture in the Crypto Space.”

● A research paper titled “Lightning Network: a second path towards centralisation of

the Bitcoin economy” concluded that the network has security vulnerabilities due to
increased centralization.

○ Maintain the original spelling of the title, even if it is not in American English.

For formatting other titles, see the Titles cheatsheet.

Book subtitles
● Subtitled, “How Blockchain is Transforming Money, Markets, and Banking,” the book
touches upon a far broader base than just financial services.

Unfamiliar terms and new projects

Only needed for the first mention.

● A process that the company calls a “re-decentralization” technique.

● Known as “Lifebank,” this is an application that was designed to incentivize

individuals to donate blood.

Irony
Often dismisses the validity of the word and the credibility of wherever it has come from.

● While the company “promised” that their clients would earn “millions” in returns, the
transactions were completed in Vietnamese dong — with 1 million dong only
equaling about $40.

Highlighting words
● Over the last decade or so, the word “money” has taken on a completely new
meaning for a lot of people all over the world.

● The term “digital dollar” was mentioned in three separate coronavirus-related bills
reviewed by Congress as part of the CARES Act.

Exceptions
Legislative acts do not require quotes, while TV, radio and podcast programs are expressed
in italics.

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● She is the author of the FIND Trafficking Act for conducting a comprehensive study
on the use of crypto in dark web marketplaces.

Semicolons
For linking two independent clauses that make sense logically on their own, in order to
emphasize the connection between them where a period would sever it. Coordinating
conjunctions (and, but, for, if, or, nor, yet, so) are not used, unless for complex series,
which are lists that themselves may contain commas and coordinating conjunctions.

Linking clauses
● There aren’t yet any third-party custody solutions that the SEC trusts; however,
Fidelity and the incoming wave of institutional custody could help get an ETF
approved in the future.

● Mining profitability isn’t all about the equipment; a delicate equilibrium needs to be
struck between the mining difficulty, the cost of electricity and the price of Bitcoin.

● It’s not only that most marketers can’t even imagine what a chain of blocks is, which
is the basis of any cryptocurrency; a more serious flaw is the relatively small
audience size.

Complex series
In a complex series, semicolons separate complex or long items (sentences) within a series
that themselves may contain commas, while “and” is used for the final item in the series.

● Dash fell from fifth, with an altcoin market share of 3.3%, to rank 12th with 1.3%;
NEO fell from sixth with 2.5% to 15th with 0.9%; Iota fell from seventh with 2.3% to
11th with 1.3%; NEM moved from ninth with 1.8% to 14th with 0.9%; and ETC fell
from 10th with 1.7% all the way to 16th place with 0.9%.

● Other companies building tools to enable online data privacy include Civic, a wallet
provider for safe crypto and personal data management; Telegram Passport,
offering unified authorization for online identity verification made by the creators of
the Telegram messenger and Telegram Open Network; and uPort, a company
focused on creating scalable and secure data exchanges.

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Sentence structure

Essential clauses
Essential clauses are vital to the meaning of a sentence and define what immediately
precedes it. They can be constructed by using either “that,” an adjective or a past participle
verb. Essential clauses are never set off with commas or emdashes.

● October has been a busy month in the race to register the first crypto exchange-
traded fund compliant with the requirements of U.S. regulators.

● Likewise, the new WEF-backed system will ostensibly work to “improve industry-
wide trust that cannot be achieved by acting individually.”

● The IRS recently released a fresh new set of rules that require crypto holders to
report all of their crypto holdings with meticulous detail.

● China plans to certify 11 types of equipment and software for financial technology
that facilitate digital payments and blockchain services

● An inclusive blockchain platform that will ostensibly help to increase “transparency,

efficiency or improve reporting of carbon emissions” across the industry.

● Using protocols associated with the secret sharing scheme, the parties can perform
any computational task on the shared data without needing to bring the associated
parts back together.

● This imbalance between supply and demand caused by the halving might result in
Bitcoin’s network value increasing by close to $100 billion.

Nonessential clauses
Use “which” for nonessential clauses, which define or illustrate the preceding noun or
noun phrase without affecting the meaning of the sentence. A comma must be used to
separate the nonessential clause from the rest of the sentence. The meaning of the
sentence shouldn’t be lost if its nonessential clause were dropped.

● There was very little that both lawmakers and consumers took away from the
hearing, which can be attributed to a combination of Congress’ continued lack of
understanding of the significance of Facebook’s role in Silicon Valley and

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Zuckerberg’s inability to take account for the billion users he so passionately

believes he is helping.

● Surprising comments came from the Democratic Representative from California,

Maxine Waters, who chairs the House Financial Services Committee.

Conjunctions
Conjunctions connect sentences together to provide logical sense. They require a
preceding comma.

● While it is true that some of us can still afford to mine solo, it’s not a viable option
for most people, as they do not have enough hashing power on their own to mine
blocks consistently.

● Today, it is rife with competition, and often enough, this competition is unfair and
dirty.

○ This is also an insertion.

● The WEF’s blockchain initiative announcement seems well-calculated, given that the
organization has focused on the technology in its reports over the past few years.

● The industry largely revolves around extracting objects and transporting them from
point A to point B, so providing accurate supply chain data could be an option.

● The decision has sparked a new conversation around blockchain, and whether the
sector’s apparent flaunting of regulations is brashness or simply the fact that in the
worst of cases, the SEC’s teeth aren’t as sharp as initially assumed.

● Rather than massive new user acquisitions, the industry has begun to change, and
the proof is readily apparent.

Equal adjectives
Use commas to separate a series of adjectives equal in rank. If the commas could be
replaced by the word “and” without changing the sense, the adjectives are equal.

● Even if there is an arrangement in place, the sponsor has to convince the regulator
that the entity on the other side of it qualifies as a “significant, regulated market.”

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● The WEF-backed initiative takes the idea of using blockchain for the above-
mentioned purposes and puts it on a larger, industry-wide scale.

● Xun believes that a second, more dangerous risk lies in the fact that the vast
majority of people making use of trading platforms do not employ complex
passwords.

● There is a necessary balance to strike as we transfer from the flawed financial

system of today to the more technological, decentralized system underpinned by
blockchain.

● Bitcoin arrived 10 years ago in 2009 and presented itself as a new, asymmetric,
uncorrelated asset class that was an alternative to mainstream finance.

Commas are not necessary when modifying commonly known noun phrases that contain
an adjective:

● The rates from Szechuan’s numerous hydroelectric dams during the rainy season
are well above these breakeven costs.

● This is not to mention the resistance that India’s crypto community has to deal with
in its quest for a favorable regulatory framework.

● Earlier in the day, the top-ranked digital asset on CoinMarketCap managed a

quick, 8% rally.

● Blockchain technology allows direct trading of assets by providing trust in

transactions and reducing uncertainty through its use of trustworthy self-executing
code.

Tense
Verbs referring to statements that have already been made must be in the past tense. The
present tense is used when referring to, or quoting text from, reports, books, studies, etc.,
as the publication is endlessly presenting the information. Verbs and continuous actions
relating to thinking and believing are also in the present tense. Exceptions are made for
advertorial and Magazine content.

Present tense
● A recent Harvard study shows that 49% of hyperlinks no longer work.

● Consequently, Stylianou believes it is unlikely that a CBDC will be released in the

near future.

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● The book examines how governments can use the technology to collect taxes,
register voters, issue passports and visas, and maintain the integrity of records.

● The International Diabetes Foundation estimates that as of 2019, 463 million people
suffer from diabetes globally, while South Korea has over 5 million people who
struggle with the disease.

Past tense
● Game studio Blockade Games cited “unforeseen circumstances” and individual
misfortunes as the main causes of the delay.

● Sweden’s Riksbank, in turn, mentioned that “the use of banknotes and coins is
declining in society” in a press release issued in February.

● Schnapper-Casteras agreed that some forms of sovereign digital currencies “are

surely going to happen,” but believes that those currencies might largely vary in
their nature.

Advertorial
The present tense is used for outgoing information on a product from its producing
company.

● The company emphasizes its goal to bring cryptocurrencies into the mainstream
and make them part of daily life and commerce.

● Eligma says that its near-term expansion plans include several countries in South
America.

Insertion
For insertion of effective language, opinions, nonessential information and detailed
information. Generally set off with commas, although emdashes are also appropriate at
times.

● For an individual or a group of miners, such an attack would not be cost-efficient, if

not impossible, to carry out.

● I can almost guarantee you that Facebook’s answer today would be astronomically
different, if not even more convoluted, littered with attempts to navigate away from
that line of questioning.

● We have been developing our software to enable the use of, and accessibility for,
tradable assets.

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● However, despite the rapid growth of DeFi applications, a lot remains to be seen as
to whether blockchain itself — the building block of DeFi applications — will be able
to accommodate the transactional demands of the mainstream public.

● With the significant impact of quantum computing on artificial intelligence —

another important area of prospective research and development for these
companies — this will only further stoke the motivation for discovering new
quantum breakthroughs.

● The disruption was noted by Hong Kong-based jewelry retailer Chow Tai Fook, one
of the world’s largest jewelry companies, with total assets at around $8 billion.

○ Without the second comma, this would imply that there are other jewelry
companies with total assets at around $8 million (i.e., the sentence is only
focusing on companies with total assets around $8 million, and Chow Tai Fook is
one of them). This can also be set off with emdashes.

Bullet points
Bullet points are capitalized and contain a period at the end of each point unless the list
leads on from a sentence or contains few words. The last point in a list that leads on from a
sentence finishes with a period.

Leading on from a sentence

Capitalization of each first word, period only after the final point.

This data includes (but is not limited to):

● Details of every block (timestamp, fees, miner rewards, block weight,

addresses, users, etc.)

● Details of every transaction (sending and receiving addresses, the amount

transferred in each transaction, the remaining addresses, block time, etc.)

● Smart contract invocation and usage (mostly for Ethereum and Ethereum-
based tokens).

Not leading on from a sentence

Capitalization of each first word, period after each point.

Initially, we are looking into the four most basic, yet crucial, on-chain metrics
available:

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● Addresses — as in the amount each address holds, the length of time the
amount has been held and individual behavior.

● Transactions — as in the number, amounts transferred and total volume.

● Unspent transaction output — as in the percentage of holders in profit, the

total value created and the total value spent.

● Blocks — as in block height and block weight, or the actual size in bytes of
both the total blockchain and a single block.

Containing few words

Capitalization of each first word, no periods after each point.

Some of the other big-name entities that have signed up to become members of the
CRC include:

● Circle Internet Financial

● Genesis Global Trading

● Grayscale Investments

● Anchor Labs

● DRW Holdings’ Cumberland unit

Quotes: Editing
The content of quotes should only be edited to provide clarity. Use [...] to indicate the
omission of one or more irrelevant words in condensing quotes, texts and documents, but
take care not to delete something that would distort the meaning. Omitted words can be
replaced with grammatically cohesive ones in brackets to give the audience context.
Quotes accessible elsewhere on the internet can be condensed using brackets but should
only be edited to correct obvious, distracting errors. If a previously published quote is
edited, the following disclaimer should be added: Quotes in this article taken from previously
published sources have been lightly edited. Cointelegraph does not use [sic].

Editing typos
Spelling or grammatical errors that affect the meaning or readability of a sentence can be
edited. Quotes with strange capitalization can also be normalized so as not to distract
readers, as long as doing so does not change any sentiment within the quote.

● “The grocery store is always busy in the evening hours, as that is when most
costumers get off work.”
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○ The error can be changed to “customers.”

Providing context
If the quote being used does not provide enough context, the needed word and
subsequent corrections can be added in brackets.

● “If it is true that [Latin American] banks have limitations and restrictions to send
money to crypto exchanges; the same situation that happens with Spain. [...] We see
that there is a problem at a general level.”

● Zuckerberg indicated in his prepared statement to Congress that “[Facebook]

support[s] Libra delaying its launch until it has fully addressed U.S. regulatory
concerns.”

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Quotes: Formatting
If expressed with commas as the focus of a sentence and/or is the beginning of a quoted
sentence or phrase, the first word of a quote should be capitalized. A partial quote should
grammatically and syntactically suit the larger sentence it’s in, with its first word not
capitalized.

As the focus of a sentence

First letter capitalized, appropriate punctuation preceding and following.
● As professor Alex “Sandy” Pentland of MIT said, “We want answers, not data.”
● “A once-in-a-century pathogen demands once-in-a-century solutions,” argued
Deutsche Bank macro strategist, Marion Laboure, “An obvious place to start is to
accelerate the inevitable shift toward [digital cash].”
● As professor Alex “Sandy” Pentland of MIT said, “We want answers, not data.”
● Nevertheless, he maintains that there is a healthy interest and participation from
local traders, saying, “I think that a lot of people underestimate the trading
community in South Africa.”

As part of a sentence
First letter not capitalized, punctuated as a regular part of the sentence.
● Schnapper-Casteras agreed that some forms of sovereign digital currencies “are
surely going to happen,” but believes that those currencies might largely vary in
their nature.
● Sun mentioned the desire to “withdraw our votes also ASAP to give rights back to
the community.”
● One of the STEEM holders told Cointelegraph that he “and a few others” were
mistakenly added to the banlist via an algorithm meant to pick up on specific
behavior.
● Additionally, they promised him that over the next week, they “will fix the mistakes
made by the algorithmic airdrop blacklist.”
● Notestein also admitted that the Hive team was “extremely rushed” and is aware
that there might be errors in the script.

Beginning of a quoted sentence or phrase

The first letter of a new phrase must be capitalized, even if it is not the focus of the
sentence. It should not be preceded with a comma.

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● When a commercial transaction does not work out as hoped for, crying “Investment
contract!” is a much more likely way for the buyer to get some money back from the
seller.

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