Password forgotten and the recovery phrase is missing Serious

The recovery phrase exists because there is nobody to email for a reset. Without it and without the password, there is usually no way back into the account, and the honest answer is to start a new one.

Before giving up

• Check your password manager, since the phrase may have been saved with the login
• Check any paper you wrote at signup, including a notebook or an envelope you forgot about
• Check offline backups if you keep any, since the phrase is often stored alongside a PGP key

Starting again

A new account starts with no order history, which costs you nothing structurally but does mean rebuilding the record. Set it up properly this time, with a username used nowhere else, a generated password, the phrase on paper and two factor enabled.

Why there is nobody to email

Ordinary account recovery works because a service holds a second channel it can verify you through, usually an address that belongs to you. A market deliberately holds none of that, which is the same reason it cannot build a profile on you. The recovery phrase exists to fill that gap, and it only works if it exists somewhere outside your memory.

This is worth understanding at signup rather than afterwards. The three minutes spent writing the phrase down are the entire recovery system, and skipping them is a decision even when it does not feel like one.

What not to do

• Do not type the phrase into any page that offers to restore access with it
• Do not store it in a note synced to a cloud account
• Do not photograph it, since photographs travel further than paper does