Risk disclosure

Introduction: why this page comes first

Every tool on this platform exists to organise information, not to remove uncertainty. Markets move for reasons no analysis engine fully anticipates, and a well-informed decision can still be a losing one. The purpose of this disclosure is not legal decoration: it is the honest description of what can happen to your money, so that you size your commitments accordingly. Nothing in the AI engine's readings, in a conversation with your account manager, or in any projection produced by the calculator should be read as a promise of returns.

Where we say "you can lose some or all of your capital", we mean exactly that. Cryptocurrencies can fall sharply in hours, shares can gap down overnight, and events such as exchange outages or regulatory announcements can change conditions between one session and the next.

1. Market risk

Market risk is the possibility that prices move against your position. It is the most fundamental risk in any asset: crypto assets and shares are priced continuously by supply and demand, and both are influenced by interest-rate decisions, inflation data, corporate results and macroeconomic headlines. The Bank of England's rate path alone has moved both the FTSE indices and sterling crypto pairs materially within single quarters.

Market risk cannot be diversified away entirely. Holding several assets reduces exposure to any single name, but broad drawdowns, such as those seen across crypto in 2022, affect nearly everything at once. The AI engine summarises conditions; it does not predict turning points reliably, and any reading can be wrong.

2. Volatility risk

Volatility is the speed and size of price movements. Crypto assets are structurally more volatile than listed shares: double-digit daily swings in major pairs are routine, and smaller tokens regularly move by multiples of that. Volatility cuts both ways; it creates opportunity and magnifies mistakes at the same time.

For a UK investor, volatility also interacts with position sizing. A position that is comfortable at 3 per cent daily movement becomes dangerous if it doubles in a week. Decide your exposure in pounds you are prepared to see fluctuate, not in the returns you hope for.

3. Liquidity risk

Liquidity risk is the risk of not being able to buy or sell near the price you see. Thinly traded tokens and small-cap shares can carry wide spreads, and during stressed sessions even major assets can become hard to execute at quoted prices. A stop level is not a guarantee of the price you receive when the market gaps.

Liquidity also disappears at the worst moments. On days of extreme moves, order books thin out and execution quality degrades precisely when exiting matters most. Treat any strategy that assumes constant easy exit with scepticism.

4. Product and cost risk

Different instruments carry different structures of risk. Spot holdings expose you to price movement alone; anything with embedded leverage, maturity or funding mechanics adds layers that behave unexpectedly under stress. Spreads, subscription fees and, where applicable, network costs reduce returns even when a position works out.

The fees page publishes our full schedule so you can cost a strategy before running it. As a rule, the more active the strategy, the more fees compound against it; a high-frequency approach on a small balance is often uneconomic before a single price moves.

5. Operational and technical risk

Platforms fail. Servers restart, data feeds drop, and maintenance windows land at inconvenient moments. If the Nextrade dashboard is unavailable, your underlying positions remain wherever you hold them, but your view of them and your alerts are interrupted. Never run a strategy whose safety depends on any single service, including ours, being continuously available.

Connectivity between the platform and your exchange depends on that exchange's interfaces. When an exchange changes or degrades an interface, readings can be delayed or missing until the connection is re-established. Such gaps are a normal property of integrated services, not a fault you can trade around.

6. Counterparty and custody risk

Nextrade does not hold your funds; they remain with your exchange or bank. That concentrates a different risk you must evaluate yourself: the financial strength and conduct of the institutions you use. Exchanges have failed, frozen withdrawals and been hacked, and in those events clients have sometimes recovered only part of their assets, or nothing.

Diversifying where you hold assets, using established institutions, and keeping only what a strategy actively needs on any single exchange are ordinary prudence. Protection schemes that exist for bank deposits do not extend the same way to crypto balances, and you should not assume they do.

7. Cybersecurity and fraud risk

Accounts holding value attract criminals. Phishing emails that imitate our branding, clone websites, fake support numbers and "recovery agent" scams circulate continuously. We will never ask for your password or a verification code by phone or email, and any message that does is fraudulent regardless of how convincing it looks.

Protect your own side of the boundary: a unique password, two-factor authentication enabled, and healthy suspicion of urgency. Our security page describes the measures on our side and the warning signs on yours; the fraud warning page describes known scam patterns in detail.

8. Legal, regulatory and tax risk

The regulatory treatment of crypto assets is still evolving in the United Kingdom, and rules that apply today may change. Some activities may become restricted, some services may become unavailable to UK residents, and reporting obligations may grow. Nothing on this platform is tax advice: gains from disposing of crypto assets and shares can be subject to Capital Gains Tax, and keeping your own records is your responsibility.

If you are unsure about the tax or legal consequences of trading, take advice from a qualified professional in the UK before you commit money, not after.

Before you start

Three habits reduce more harm than any analysis tool. First, commit only money whose total loss would not change your life; emergency funds, rent and committed savings have no place in a trading balance. Second, start small: the £250 Basic minimum exists so your first month is about learning the workflow, not proving a strategy. Third, keep records of every decision and review them monthly; your audit history on the platform exists precisely for this.

If any part of this page describes a situation you are not comfortable with, the honest answer is not to trade. The platform will still be here when your circumstances or your understanding change. Questions about anything on this page go to [email protected], and your account manager will discuss risk with you candidly, before you deposit anything.