Risk Disclosure

Risk 1

No deposit insurance or investor protection

Digital assets and fiat balances held through DireBit are not deposits and are not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the National Credit Union Administration or the Securities Investor Protection Corporation. No government scheme will compensate you if DireBit fails, if a counterparty fails, or if assets are lost or stolen. This protection simply does not exist for digital assets.

Risk 2

Price volatility

Digital asset prices can move by very large percentages within minutes, in either direction, and can do so outside normal business hours. Prices are driven by speculation, sentiment, media coverage, regulatory announcements, technology changes, the behavior of large holders, and factors that may be unknowable. A digital asset may lose all of its value and may never recover it. Some assets have been abandoned by their developers and now trade at effectively nothing.

Risk 3

Transactions are irreversible

Once a digital asset transaction is confirmed on a blockchain it cannot be cancelled, reversed or recalled — not by you, not by DireBit, and not by any court or authority. There is no chargeback mechanism.

• Assets sent to an incorrect address are generally lost permanently.
• Assets sent on the wrong network, or without a required memo or destination tag, may be unrecoverable.
• Assets we do not support, sent to a DireBit address, may be permanently lost.
• If you are tricked into authorising a transfer, we cannot get the assets back.

Check every address, network and amount before you confirm.

Risk 4

Liquidity risk

There may be no buyer at the price you want, or at any price. Liquidity can disappear quickly during stressed markets. Spreads between buying and selling prices can widen sharply, meaning you receive materially less than the headline market price. Large orders may move the price against you. You may be unable to sell when you most want to.

Risk 5

Custody and insolvency risk

When DireBit holds digital assets for you, you rely on us to keep them safe and to return them. Although customer assets are recorded as yours, held separately from our corporate assets, and are not lent or pledged, you are exposed to our continued solvency and operational integrity.

If DireBit were to become insolvent, the legal treatment of customer digital assets in a United States insolvency proceeding is not fully settled and continues to develop. You might be treated as an unsecured creditor, your recovery might be delayed for a long period, and you might recover less than the value of your balance, or nothing. Assets may be held in pooled wallets, so you have a claim to a recorded balance rather than to specific coins.

Risk 6

Security, fraud and theft

Digital assets are a target for sophisticated criminals. Exchanges, wallets and individual customers have suffered large losses through hacking, insider misuse, malware, SIM-swap attacks, phishing and account takeover. We maintain controls designed to reduce this risk, but no control eliminates it, and a successful attack could result in the loss of your assets.

Your own security matters. Use a strong unique password and two-factor authentication, keep your devices updated, and never share a password, verification code or recovery phrase with anyone — including anyone claiming to be from DireBit.

Risk 7

Technology and blockchain risk

Blockchain networks are experimental, decentralised and outside our control. They may suffer congestion, high fees, delayed or stuck transactions, consensus failures, chain reorganisations, or attacks on the network. A protocol may undergo a hard fork producing two competing chains; we decide which chain, if any, we support, and we may not support a forked asset or an airdrop at all. Smart contracts may contain undiscovered defects. Software you rely on, including ours, may contain bugs.

Risk 8

Service availability

Access to DireBit may be interrupted by maintenance, technical faults, connectivity problems, cyber-attack, third-party provider failure or events beyond our control. An interruption may occur precisely when markets are moving fastest, and may prevent you from transacting when you want to. We do not guarantee uninterrupted access, and we are not liable for losses caused by an inability to transact.

Risk 9

Regulatory and legal risk

The regulation of digital assets is developing and differs between jurisdictions. New laws, regulations, enforcement actions or court decisions could, with little warning, restrict or prohibit the use of certain digital assets, require us to stop supporting an asset, require us to restrict or close accounts in a jurisdiction, or change our obligations to you. An asset that is lawful today may not be tomorrow. A digital asset could be determined by a regulator or a court to be a security, which may materially affect whether and how it can be traded.

Risk 10

Tax risk

Buying, selling, exchanging or spending digital assets may create taxable events, including where you exchange one digital asset for another and receive no cash. Tax treatment varies by jurisdiction and may change, including retrospectively. You are solely responsible for determining, reporting and paying your own taxes and for keeping adequate records. DireBit does not provide tax advice.

Risk 11

Market data and charts

Prices, charts, volumes and statistics shown on our website and in our applications are provided for information only. They may come from third-party sources, may be delayed, and may be inaccurate or incomplete. They are not an offer or a quotation, and the price at which a transaction actually executes may differ. Do not rely on displayed data as your sole basis for a decision.

Risk 12

No advice and no guarantees

DireBit is not an investment adviser or broker-dealer. Nothing we publish — including market data, watchlists, educational material, the ordering of assets in any list, or the fact that we support an asset — is a recommendation, an endorsement, or an assessment of suitability. We do not consider your objectives, financial situation or needs. We do not guarantee any return, and we do not offer interest, yield or profit-sharing on balances. Anyone promising you guaranteed returns on digital assets is defrauding you.

Risk 13

Self-custody and hardware wallets

Where you use the DireBit Wallet application with a self-custody or hardware wallet, you alone control the private keys and the recovery phrase. This means:

• If you lose your recovery phrase, your assets are gone. No one — including DireBit, the hardware manufacturer, or any authority — can restore them.
• Anyone who obtains your recovery phrase can take everything, immediately and irreversibly.
• We cannot freeze, reverse or recover a transaction you authorise from a wallet you control.
• You are responsible for storing your recovery phrase securely offline, and for verifying the authenticity of any hardware device you buy.

Risk 14

Scams and social engineering

Digital asset customers are heavily targeted by fraud. Be alert to investment schemes promising guaranteed or unusually high returns, romance and long-con "pig butchering" schemes, fake support staff who contact you first, fake applications and websites, and anyone asking you to move assets to keep them "safe".

Risk 15

Your acknowledgement

By using DireBit you confirm that you have read and understood this Risk Disclosure, that you accept these risks, that you are financially able to bear the loss of the full amount you convert into digital assets, and that you are not relying on DireBit for any recommendation or assessment of suitability. This disclosure forms part of our Terms of Service.