Prospectus
The formal document an issuer must give investors describing what a security is, how it works, and what can go wrong.
A prospectus sets out the structure of the product, the parties involved, the fees, how value per share is calculated, how creation and redemption operate, the conflicts of interest, and an extensive risk-factor section. For digital-asset products, the risk factors are where custody arrangements, treatment of forks and airdrops, reliance on unregulated spot markets, and regulatory uncertainty are actually described in specific terms. The document exists because it creates liability: material misstatements or omissions are actionable, which is why the language is cautious rather than promotional. Under MiCA the equivalent obligation is a prescribed crypto-asset white paper, a term the industry had already been using informally for technical documents.
En pratique
A digital-asset product's risk factors will typically state plainly that the trust has no ability to recover assets if the custodian's private keys are lost or compromised.
Le malentendu courant
That a prospectus is marketing material, when it is a liability document whose risk section is written to disclose problems rather than to persuade anyone.