“Read the Whitepaper” they said, “All will be OK” they said

So I have seen at least 7 (or is it 7,000?) posts and comments telling people to "Read the whitepaper!" and "Do Your Own Research!".

I completely agree with this advice and believe you should have some understanding about what you are investing your money into. Also, doing your own research (DYOR), has been a thing for a long time in regards to investing in stocks, bonds, commodities, etc. but I feel in the crypto community this seems to be presented as a new-fangled concept, but I digress.

Back to the point. Since I like to be informed I did read the whitepapers for three projects I am interested in: Algorand, Stellar and Chainlink.

WOW.

Where to begin.

I know a Whitepaper is not a 3-4 page summary, but in the above order they are 75 pages, 32 pages and 102 pages (they are actually a bit longer, but I only included the actual paper content in the above numbers, not the source citing). As a point of reference the 2020 Alphabet Annual report is 134 pages, Amazon's is 87 and Apple's is 105 (I like "A"s).

But OK, DYOR takes time and is not meant to be a quick read you knock off on your mobile while taking a shit.

But then I go through the whitepapers. The first few pages are higher level and make sense. Then quick enough we come to paragraphs such as this one (from Algorand):

"Step 1: Block Proposal

Instructions for every user i ∈ PKr−k : User i starts his own Step 1 of round r as soon as he knows Br−1 .

• User i computes Qr−1 from the third component of Br−1 and checks whether i ∈ SV r,1 or not.

• If i /∈ SV r,1 , then i stops his own execution of Step 1 right away.

• If i ∈ SV r,1 , that is, if i is a potential leader, then he collects the round-r payments that have been propagated to him so far and computes a maximal payset P AY r i from them. Next, he computes his “candidate block” Br i = (r, P AY r i , SIGi(Qr−1 ), H(Br−1 )). Finally, he computes the message m r,1 i = (Br i , esigi(H(Br i )), σ r,1 i ), destroys his ephemeral secret key skr,1 i , and then propagates m r,1 i ."

Now I realize I am sharing one segment out of context of the overall paper, but HOLY SHIT. This is supposed to be something a layman can easily understand? And in the case of Algorand it goes on like this for half of the 75 pages. JESUS CHRIST.

I have two degrees in finance / accounting and have worked numerous roles in these fields for >10 years. I don't tell you about my education and work experience to impress you (as I know just by saying I have an accounting degree you are already green with envy). I tell you these details about me to say as someone who works with numbers, equations, vague concepts, odd rules (google "GAAP Disclosures" if you have trouble falling asleep) I found these papers really really really hard to understand. I think I got a lot of it, but doubt I could pass a test on them.

Now to my questions dear reader:

1. Do many of you actually take the time to read the whole whitepaper for the projects you invest in?

2. If you do, do you actually understand the whitepaper?

If many of you answered "yes" to both 1 and 2 than I am just an idiot and that is how it is.

I just started my crypto investment journey, but from now reading a few of the whitepapers I am wondering if I should bother calling it "investing" or really that I will just speculate in this asset class and hope for the best.