1. In the early days in Bitcoin mining you could make some profit with your laptop CPU or GPU. These days are long gone, every year new more efficient hardware is been developed. Which makes older hardware obsolete for mining. Meaning that bad timing investment could potentially make your investment worthless.
2. Hardware failure is very big thing to reduce mining risks. This hardware needs to be run 24/7 to gain the most optimal revenue from mining. Very often these devices/hardware do brake down, asic miners are the worse hardware comparing to GPU. Hashing board failure is common problem on them, which will need additional investment after 6 month from your purchase. If this would happen to your devices.
3. The one of the hardest parts is not enough profits. Crypto currencies are extremely volatile, one day you could mine in profit the next day you might be at loss. If you are using latest hardware, most important to stay in the game and mine with profit. Is to have cheapest electric rate between all the other miners on network. Electric is everyone biggest OPEX cost, dont even think to start mining as a business large scale if your power costs is above 6-7c a kw/h. It might be profitable to mine with 20c per kw/h today but it might not be anymore tomorrow. Which means you will need to shutdown your mining farm.
4. Legal risks . Crypto currency is still very new, and it has not been regulated very well. So you might face some kind of crypto currency ban in the country which might affect your mining operation.
5. Hacking – Use crypto currency safe as possible. You know the good old saying not your keys not your coins. Don’t keep your mined coins on exchange. And use only community trusted mining pools.
6. And the last of the top 6 is the environmental risk. Choose mining location wisely. Mining hardware most likely will use a lot of power, this is why they will produce a lot of heat. And heat will affect your mining operation. Something like mining container could be an option.

Recognize your risks before starting a mining operation.

Please comment down bellow with any more risks you might think it is worth to mention.