Posting this just to let new instance admins who may have faced the same problem as me with email verification know a solution. It is important to set up SPF record so big email providers won’t reject your email. All you have to do is configure the TXT entry in the DNS configuration of your domain name provider to include “v=spf1 mx -all”

Note: this won’t prevent it from going to spam folder, that requires more verification, but this will at least allow emails to go through.