Solana : Bonk DAO Loses Nearly 20 Million Dollars in a Sophisticated Attack
BonkDAO lost about 20 million dollars on Monday following a governance attack that the team describes as malicious. An adopted proposal allowed transferring 4.4 trillion BONK tokens to the address of a suspected attacker. Will investigators be able to recover the funds?
In Brief:
- BonkDAO lost $20 million in a malicious governance attack on July 6, 2026.
- The approved proposal, dubbed “Sowellian BonkDAO,” resulted in 4,400 billion BONK tokens being sent to a suspected attacker.
- Kraken and Upbit suspended BONK deposits and withdrawals following the incident.
How did the governance attack drain the treasury on Solana?
The incident occurred around 4 AM Eastern Time on Monday, amidst the buzz around memecoins on Solana. More than 4.4 trillion BONK tokens, worth about 19.3 million dollars at the time of writing, left BonkDAO’s treasury wallet.
The protocol uses an on-chain voting system to validate its governance proposals. This architecture, designed to decentralize decisions, allowed the attacker to have their text adopted without centralized human intervention.
Improvement proposal number 76, titled “Sowellian BonkDAO”, notably planned to “rebuild from its ashes” and reward favorable voters. However, BonkDAO confirmed on X that the suspicious address, funded by a Bybit account according to Solscan, did not redistribute any tokens.
The token was then transferred further. Around 3:30 PM Eastern Time, the funds reached a second Solana address ending in “eh42”.
What are the consequences for exchanges and the BONK price?
Upbit and Kraken reacted quickly. Both platforms suspended BONK deposits and withdrawals as soon as the incident was announced.
The South Korean platform justified its decision by measures to protect users after a security incident. Moreover, BonkDAO says it is collaborating with law enforcement and Solana ecosystem cross-chain bridges to trace the funds.
At the same time, the incident renews the debate on the security of on-chain votes in crypto DAOs. Several projects have already suffered similar attacks, usually through the massive purchase of governance tokens before a key vote.
The token dropped about 7% in 24 hours, around 0.0000043 dollar. However, this level remains 93% below its all-time high of 0.000058 dollar.
BONK reached this peak in December 2024, during the memecoin boom on Solana. At that time, the token was among the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization.
BonkDAO promises regular communication as the investigation progresses. Holder confidence will now depend on the project’s ability to recover the funds. Other crypto DAOs might nonetheless review their voting mechanisms after this governance flaw.
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Passionné par le Bitcoin, j'aime explorer les méandres de la blockchain et des cryptos et je partage mes découvertes avec la communauté. Mon rêve est de vivre dans un monde où la vie privée et la liberté financière sont garanties pour tous, et je crois fermement que Bitcoin est l'outil qui peut rendre cela possible.
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