Risk Disclaimer

Last updated: 18 September 2026

Cryptocurrency is one of the highest-risk asset classes available to retail buyers. Losing everything you put in is a normal outcome, not an unlucky edge case. Please read this page before making any decision involving money.

Nothing here is advice

CoinMarketHelp publishes market data and explanatory articles. We are not financial advisers, we are not authorised or regulated by any financial authority, and nothing on this site is a personal recommendation. We do not know your circumstances and cannot advise you. If you want advice, get it from someone licensed to give it in your country.

The specific risks

Volatility

Crypto assets routinely move 20–30% in a day and have historically fallen 80–95% from peak to trough, repeatedly, including assets that later recovered and many that never did. Past price movement tells you nothing reliable about future price movement.

Total loss

A crypto asset can go to zero and stay there. Projects are abandoned, teams disband, networks stop being maintained, and tokens are delisted from every venue that traded them. There is no deposit insurance, no compensation scheme and no lender of last resort. When it is gone, it is gone.

Stablecoins are not guaranteed

Assets designed to hold a fixed value have broken that peg before, sometimes permanently and catastrophically. A stablecoin is a claim on an issuer or a mechanism, and both can fail. Treat a "dollar" token as an unsecured claim, not as a dollar.

Custody and counterparty failure

If you hold assets on an exchange, you are an unsecured creditor of that exchange. Exchanges have been hacked, have frozen withdrawals, have misappropriated customer funds and have collapsed into insolvency, and customers have recovered little or nothing. If you hold your own keys, losing them means losing the assets with no recovery process whatsoever.

Fraud

This sector contains a high density of outright fraud: pump-and-dump schemes, tokens whose code prevents selling, fake teams, fabricated audits, impersonation of legitimate projects, and social engineering aimed directly at holders. Listing on this site is automatic and based on third-party market data — it is not vetting, and it implies nothing about a project's legitimacy.

Liquidity

Reported market capitalisation and 24-hour volume can be dramatically overstated. Thin order books mean that attempting to sell a meaningful position can move the price against you sharply, or find no buyer at all.

Regulatory risk

Legal treatment of crypto assets differs by country and changes quickly. Assets can be reclassified, services can be restricted, and access can be withdrawn in your jurisdiction with little warning. It is your responsibility to know what is lawful where you live.

Tax

In most jurisdictions crypto transactions are taxable events, and in many, so are trades between crypto assets, not just conversions to fiat currency. Tax obligations can arise even on positions showing an overall loss. We do not provide tax advice.

Technology

Smart contracts contain bugs. Bridges get drained. Networks fork, halt, or suffer consensus failures. Audits reduce risk but do not eliminate it, and many audited protocols have been exploited.

Our data has limits too

Prices on this site are aggregated from third parties, refreshed hourly, and may be delayed, incomplete or wrong. They are not a trading feed and must not be used as one. Our written explainers are generated with machine assistance and are not individually verified by a human — they can be outdated or mistaken. Verify anything material against the project's own documentation before acting on it.

If you decide to proceed anyway

• Never commit money you cannot afford to lose entirely.
• Never borrow to buy crypto assets.
• Read the project's own documentation, not just summaries — including ours.
• Be suspicious of anything promising guaranteed or unusually high returns. There are none.
• Understand where your assets are held and who can take them.
• Assume anyone contacting you unprompted about crypto is trying to steal from you.

By using this site you accept that any decision you make is your own, and that CoinMarketHelp bears no liability for any loss arising from it. See our Terms of Use.