Risk Disclosure
Written to be read rather than to be survived in court. Every item below is something that can actually cost you money, and for each one we say plainly whether it is recoverable.
This disclosure is general information, not financial advice. Whether these risks are acceptable to you depends on circumstances we know nothing about.
The Short Version
Cryptocurrency can lose value quickly and permanently. Blockchain transfers cannot be reversed by anybody, including us. No deposit guarantee scheme in any country covers crypto assets. And the rules governing all of this are still changing in most jurisdictions.
None of that is a reason not to use a card like this. It is a reason to know which risks you are taking, because several of them are irreversible and the moment to understand them is before, not after.
The Risks in Detail
Ordered roughly by how often they actually cost people money, not by how serious they sound.
Sending to the wrong address or network
The most common way people lose crypto, by a wide margin, and it has nothing to do with any provider's security. A transfer sent to the wrong address, or on the wrong network, is generally unrecoverable — there is no central party who can reverse it, no chargeback, and no appeal. Check the network on the deposit screen before every transfer, including ones you have made many times before.
Market volatility
Crypto assets can fall sharply in minutes and the fall can be permanent. If you hold a volatile asset and convert it later, you bear that movement. This is why a stablecoin is the sensible thing to hold as a spending balance: its value does not move between the moment you send it and the moment you spend it.
Network risk
Blockchains congest, fork and occasionally halt. When a network is congested, transfers cost more and confirm slower, and neither is under our control. A network that stops producing blocks stops your deposit until it resumes — we cannot make it resume.
Custody and counterparty risk
Any balance held with a third party carries the risk that the third party fails. Segregation of customer funds is designed to make those funds returnable rather than available to creditors, but returning them takes a legal process measured in weeks or months, not hours. It is real protection and it is not instant access.
Regulatory change
Rules governing crypto and card programmes are changing in most jurisdictions and rarely in a direction that makes them looser. A change can restrict a feature, a country or an asset with little notice, and providers do not get to opt out. We will give as much notice as the change itself permits, which is sometimes none.
Account restriction
Anti-money-laundering law requires regulated firms to freeze accounts in defined circumstances and sometimes forbids explaining why at the time. Funds are not lost, but access can be interrupted for the duration of a review. The AML policy sets out what triggers this.
Conversion timing
Conversion happens at the market rate at the moment it executes, not at the rate you saw when you started. In a fast market those differ. The amount credited is the amount the conversion actually achieved.
Fraud and impersonation
The crypto industry attracts impersonation, and brands like ours are targets. We will never ask for your password, a two-factor code, your full card number or a recovery phrase. Losses from voluntarily handing credentials to a stranger are generally not recoverable by anybody.
What Is Not Covered
No deposit guarantee scheme covers crypto assets. Not the FSCS in the United Kingdom, not the FDIC in the United States, not the deposit guarantee schemes required across the European Union. These schemes cover deposits at licensed banks. A crypto balance is not a bank deposit and no amount of careful wording changes that. Any provider advertising «insured» crypto is describing a commercial insurance policy with its own limits and exclusions, which is a different thing from deposit protection.
Blockchain transactions are final. There is no chargeback mechanism on a blockchain. This is a design property, not a defect, and it applies equally to mistakes and to theft.
Past performance says nothing. We make no prediction about the value of any asset and we do not offer investment advice. Nothing on this site is a recommendation to buy or hold anything.
Questions About Risk
A stablecoin holds its peg because its issuer maintains reserves and honours redemptions. That is a promise by a company, not a law of nature, and stablecoins have broken their pegs before. The risk is much smaller than holding a volatile asset and it is not zero. Issuer, reserve composition and jurisdiction are worth knowing about whichever one you hold.
Segregated customer funds are not company assets and are returned to customers through the process applying in the issuer's jurisdiction. It takes time. Crypto held with a custody partner follows that partner's own arrangements. Neither is covered by deposit insurance.
No. There is no leverage, no margin, no borrowing and no lending in this product. It is a spending card attached to a balance you funded. You can lose what you put in; you cannot end up owing money.
A card payment disputed with a merchant follows the card network's dispute process, which exists and which we will help you use. A crypto transfer sent directly to someone has no such process. This is one of the practical arguments for spending through a card rather than transferring crypto to a counterparty.
This document is available in several languages. In the event of any discrepancy between versions, the English version prevails.
