Risk notice
The unglamorous page. Read it before the guides, not after something has gone wrong.
You can lose money buying crypto, including all of it. Not as a remote tail risk — as an ordinary outcome that has happened to a great many ordinary people. Bitcoin has repeatedly fallen by more than half from a previous high and stayed down for a year or longer. Nothing on this site, and nobody anywhere, can tell you what it will do next.
This is not advice
buypith publishes general information about how exchange interfaces, fees, and processes work. It is not financial advice, investment advice, tax advice, or legal advice, and it is not tailored to you — we know nothing about your income, debts, obligations, or tolerance for loss. No page here is a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold anything.
We are not licensed or regulated as financial advisers in any jurisdiction. If you want advice, get it from someone who is, in your own country, with your own numbers in front of them.
Specific things that can go wrong
- Price falls, and stays down
- There is no floor, no guarantee, and no insurance on the value of a crypto asset. Money you may need within a few years does not belong here.
- Transactions do not reverse
- A completed buy cannot be cancelled the way a card payment can. A withdrawal sent to a wrong address is generally gone permanently, with no bank, chargeback, or support ticket that can undo it.
- Platforms fail
- Coins held in an exchange account are the exchange's liability to you, not property in your hands. Exchanges have frozen withdrawals, been hacked, and collapsed. Deposit-insurance schemes that cover bank accounts in your country almost certainly do not cover this.
- Accounts get restricted
- Verification can fail, accounts can be limited or frozen while checks run, and funds can be unavailable during that time. This is normal in regulated finance and it happens to people who have done nothing wrong.
- Tax follows you
- In many countries buying, selling, converting, or spending crypto creates a taxable event and a record-keeping obligation from the very first transaction. Not knowing is not a defence anywhere we are aware of. Start a record on day one and talk to someone qualified locally.
- Scams target new buyers specifically
- “Recovery” services, guaranteed-return schemes, fake support accounts, and helpful strangers offering to trade on your behalf all concentrate on people who have just started. Anyone promising a fixed return is lying; there is no such thing here.
Accuracy and freshness
Fees, limits, supported payment methods, and processing times change without notice, differ by country, and sometimes differ between two accounts on the same platform. Figures on this site are ranges we saw when we checked, with the month of checking stated where it matters. The exchange's own current page is the authoritative version — if it disagrees with us, it is right and we are out of date. Tell us and we will fix it.
Screenshots and step descriptions can go stale within weeks of an interface update. If a screen in front of you does not match a screen described here, trust the one in front of you and check the exchange's help centre.
Local law is your responsibility
Whether you may buy, hold, or trade crypto, which platforms may serve you, and what you must declare are all matters of local law that vary enormously and change often. Nothing here is a statement that any activity is legal or available where you live.
Limitation
This site is provided as it is, without warranty. To the extent the law allows, we accept no liability for loss arising from decisions made after reading it. That is a legal formality, but the substance behind it is honest: the decision and the consequences are yours.