2 factor authentication

So I just locked myself out of btc-e for 2 weeks. Guess that's one way to make sure you buy and hold.

My mistake was enabling 2 factor authentication (2FA), then not unlinking 2FA when I went to flash a new ROM on my device. My battery life on nexus 4 has gone to hell since the KitKat update so I wanted to flash to see if that fixes it.

Honestly, I didn't give backing up much thought because everything on my device is typically backed up by Google... So I just flashed. Then I realized my Google authenticator accounts didn't come back, so I went to look at recovery options on btc-e. Fortunately they do have options, but removing 2FA makes you unable to login to your account for 2 weeks.

Fortunately I will get back in, and 2FA makes the account more secure, however this time I burnt myself.

Edit: by the way, btc-e gives you codes I believe as backup for 2FA. I didn't save those, which is part of my problem here.

I had 2FA on CampBX and upgraded my phone (totally new phone) and forgot about the authenticator app completely. I think I was able to do something with my Google account to transfer the app, but I'm not 100% sure.

The only 2FA that I still have on any BTC trading site is my Ubi-key on MTgox. I don't keep BTC on sites anymore (which I think in general is a good idea especially with how lucrative BTC is becoming). One of the things I did when I was more actively trading was factor in withdrawal fees into the "total fees" for my trade and they helped me to set a baseline for where I would make profit on a trade.

But it's a pain that you're locked out right now.

Ps. Matt, which wallet program do you use?

I only deal in litecoin so far, so I use the official litecoin wallet client.

I have about 4LTC currently almost half of which I bought, some of which I mined, and some of which I earned trading. I keep it all on BTC-e mostly, as its a small enough amount and I trade actively enough it is easier to only factor in the .2% transaction fee each order.

Eventually I will withdraw some "extra" funds, but for now I'm still trying to grow the base number of coins I have.

I only realized this past week that BTC-e charges you the transaction fee for every order. I don't know if that's the same at other exchanges or not. I had expected transaction fees take effect when filled - not a rake on every order. This was a good thing to figure out especially for me - I regularly place orders and cancel/modify them when trends change in order to catch the swings at the right times. So now I factor in canceled orders as well when placing new orders, since every one costs .2% of whatever I risk even when canceled. (In contrast mtgox charges transaction fees only on successful transactions, not canceled ones)

Ouch, I didn't know that about BTC-e. I thought it was only upon fulfilled trades! That sucks.

Anyway, I asked because I wanted to advise you... Once (if) you switch to BTC, and keep them locally, use Armory for your wallet. It's BY FAR the best client and offers a lot of really cool and useful options.*

* Paper backups of your wallet allow you to keep your coins even if you lose your password or your harddrive explodes. Just print one out and you're set no matter what.

* Coin control allows you to decide manually which address sends coins when you have a transaction. This is nice if you have certain addresses with coins you don't want to touch.

*And there are even more cool things that I don't even utilize!

I think you are mistaken about the fees on BTC-e. I just looked through my transactions and the orders I cancelled got returned 100%. I think they only charge the fee for completed orders.

By the way, I contacted support to let them know of my mistake. I got a response back within a couple hours (surprisingly fast), and they confirmed I had to wait the 2 weeks before being able to login to my account again.

CarlJohnson said:

I think you are mistaken about the fees on BTC-e. I just looked through my transactions and the orders I cancelled got returned 100%. I think they only charge the fee for completed orders.

Click to expand...

I can't verify right now unless I create a new BTC-e account, make a deposit, and create/cancel an order since I'm locked out. I was pretty sure looking at my balances and order history. Maybe I got my wires crossed however.

no fees on cancelled trades guys, that would really be evil of them

but if you were to keep your cash in a wallet at all times, you would deal with the withdraw fee, which can be a pain

I keep a part on btc-e, a part in wallet myself

Sorry, I must have been looking at something wrong. I will have to look again once I can get back in (26th). I'm going to take a guess and figure I was misinterpreting how fees were taken on transactions, and got confused looking at order history/trade history. I will try to verify once I am able.

I can run an experiment if you wish I have two orders of 3ish XPM pending now, I can cancel both then make one single 6 XPM order, lets see if they add up right
currently:
XPM/BTC Sell 0.005 BTC 3.00398189 XPM 0.0150199 BTC
XPM/BTC Sell 0.005 BTC 3.00194881 XPM 0.01500974 BTC

canceled both and the new order is:
XPM/BTC Sell 0.005 BTC 6.0059307 XPM 0.03002965 BTC

too lazy to use calc, but by eye they add up right

Yup, looks right. Now just to figure out how I got my wires crossed. Thanks for clarifying.