Topic: The all important permanent profile email address (Read 116 times)

I recently have run into what is turning out to be a very expensive problem and I thought I'd warn others about it.

When you register with a trading platform you will use an email address. Do NOT use an email address that has any chance of ever expiring. For example, a domain you own that you end up not being able to afford to keep paying for, or an email associated with some kind of lesser known domain service which could be here today and gone tomorrow.

When it comes to many trading platforms, you email address is your permanent identity and it cannot be changed. This is true for Poloniex, SpectroCoin and (for practical purposes since they don't respond to support tickets) Cryptopia. BitTrex has a process for changing profile email addresses but it's not automatic. I'm sure there are others. When you make withdrawals, you will have to confirm them by email unless you have enabled 2FA and set it to bypass email confirmation. With Cryptopia, if you have not set up 2FA, you can't even log in without confirming the action by email.

So what happens if you've lost access to your email address? You might still be able to log into your account, but if you need any sort of email confirmation to make withdrawals, then you've just lost all those funds. You can see them, but you can't get at them, kind of like losing your wallet password and the private keys to all its addresses.

So the take home message: When you create an account on any trading platform or crypto-related service, remember that your email address is your identity and it cannot be changed. Use a gmail address or an address from another very reliable service, one that won't go away, to register your account. There are lots of free email and domain providers out there, but will they still be there next year? Make sure they will be before you use any of their addresses as your trading platform profile email.

If you do have accounts with questionable email addresses as your user ID, then go through the process now to change them to more reliable email addresses. It could be as simple as creating a new account with a gmail address and withdrawing everything from the old account to the new account. You could also contact support about changing it. Some platforms will change profile email addresses; many will not. But do it now while you still have access to the old questionable email address. Don't wait, or like me, you may be looking at writing off some losses.

If anyone reading this happens to know if there is a way to recreate the domain for an old email address where the domain service no longer exists, I'd be interested in knowing if there are recovery options. In the mean time, I figured I'd warn others.

Bottom line: you never ever want to lose access to an email address you are using as your profile address on anything cryptocurrency related!