Why can't I sell HNS on Namebase Consumer?
Updated 2 weeks ago
NOTE: Read the last paragraph for a manual workaround.
Namebase needs to keep HNS and BTC withdrawals turned off until sufficient hash power has built up on Handshake to protect against double spend attacks/reorgs. The risk of reorgs during the first few weeks of launch is too high and the bigger risk is around block 2016 (check hnsxplorer.com for the current block). Block 2016 is when all transactions on Handshake are enabled, and whoever mines that block gets 88 blocks worth of mining rewards.
Miners are going to fight to reorg that block and it’ll likely be highly volatile. Until Handshake stabilizes, we will disable selling HNS on Namebase Consumer since it sends BTC to an external address. We will re-enable Namebase Consumer selling when Handshake stabilizes later this month.
To clarify further, here’s an example of the attack that can happen if we enable Namebase Consumer selling now: someone mines HNS into Namebase and sells it for BTC (withdrawing it), then the chain forks and the HNS is no longer in Namebase, but the BTC is gone. That can happen right now because Handshake is still only a week old, but as more hash power comes online it becomes more and more difficult to do that attack, so we’d be able to enable Namebase Consumer selling then.
If you absolutely want to sell HNS while the hash rate is unstable, we have figured out a manual workaround that can work. Please email Tieshun at Namebase.io for details if you want to use it.