This page is for information only and is not investment advice. Ctrl Alt does not provide investment advice or recommendations.
Summary in plain language
- You can lose all the money you put in. The value of a tokenised asset can fall to zero.
- You may not be able to sell when you want to. A secondary market can be small, limited to approved holders, or absent.
- A token is a record. What you own depends on the legal structure behind it, and on that structure being enforceable.
- The technology can fail. Keys can be lost or stolen, smart contracts can contain errors and a ledger can be disrupted.
- Protection schemes may not apply. Compensation and ombudsman cover depend on the entity, the product and your client category.
The warnings below are shown one jurisdiction at a time. Each applies in full and none replaces another.
United Kingdom. Don't invest unless you're prepared to lose all the money you invest. This is a high-risk investment and you are unlikely to be protected if something goes wrong.
Dubai (VARA). Virtual Assets may lose their value in full or in part, and are subject to extreme volatility.
The owner or investor in a Virtual Asset can lose all the money or other value they invest, and does not benefit from any form of financial protection.
An asset-referenced virtual asset (ARVA) issued by the Dubai entity is not covered by any investor protection or deposit guarantee schemes.
Ireland and the EEA. Products and services of Ctrl Alt Technologies Limited are intended only for eligible counterparties and professional clients as defined under applicable MiFID legislation.
Every Ctrl Alt entity. Our services can only be used by professional or institutional investors. When investing, your capital is at risk. The value of an investment may go down as well as up and past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results.
Risks by type
These risks apply to tokenised funds, property tokens and tokenised structured products. They can occur together, and one can cause another.
Capital and valuation
The value of a tokenised fund unit, property token or structured product follows the asset behind it and can fall to zero. Property and private-market assets are valued by periodic appraisal, not by a continuous market price, so a published value can lag what a buyer would pay.
Liquidity and secondary trading
Tokenisation does not create buyers. A token may be transferable only between approved holders, on one platform, in set windows or after a lock-in period, and there may be no buyer at the price you want. A fund can limit or suspend redemptions under its own rules.
Legal title and enforceability
A token is evidence of a right, and the right depends on the wrapper: a fund unit, an interest in a special purpose vehicle, a note or a registered share of a property. If the structure, the register or the link between token and asset is challenged, your claim may be harder to enforce or worth less. Holdings across borders add questions about which law applies.
Custody and keys
Tokens are controlled by cryptographic keys. If a key is lost, stolen or misused, by you, a custodian or a service provider, tokens can be moved without authority or become unrecoverable. Where a custodian holds tokens for you, you depend on its controls and its solvency.
Smart contracts and ledgers
Smart contracts can contain coding errors and can be exploited. A ledger can suffer congestion, outages, forks or rule changes that delay or prevent transfers, settlement and distributions. A transaction recorded on a ledger usually cannot be reversed, including one made in error.
Counterparty and service providers
A tokenised product relies on several parties: issuer, manager, registrar or transfer agent, custodian, distributor, valuer and technology providers. A failure, insolvency or error at any of them can cause loss or delay, and the vehicle that issues a product may have no other assets to meet claims.
Regulatory change
Rules for tokenised securities and virtual assets are still developing in the United Kingdom, the European Union and the United Arab Emirates. A change in law, tax treatment or regulatory approach can restrict who may hold or trade a product, add costs, or force it to be restructured or wound up.
Investor protection
United Kingdom. The Financial Services Compensation Scheme protects eligible investors up to £85,000 per person per authorised firm. The investments Ctrl Alt arranges may not always be covered by an equivalent investor compensation scheme.
Dubai. A virtual asset does not benefit from any form of financial protection. The issuer's whitepaper for the property token TRE-1110, published on , gives the compensation scheme for the token as none: see the TRE-1110 whitepaper (PDF). The Dubai entity also publishes a Risk Disclosure Statement as a PDF on the live site, which was not opened for this draft.
Complaints. Whether you can take a complaint to an ombudsman depends on the entity and on your eligibility. The page on how to complain and escalate gives the steps and time limits.