Risk is not limited to cryptocurrency investment alone, generally anything that has a chance of high reward also has high risk of failure accompanied with it, but often it is ignored because investors are considering more the profits they can make. Knowing exactly what you stand to lose from the risk you are about to take will get you better prepared for the decision you're about to make, either it is something that you can accommodate mentally so even if it goes the way of loss, you don't become depressed or maybe something you need to take a pause from and then prepare yourself first for the mental side of accommodating the losses before proceeding with it. I think it is called risk assessment.