ARTFEED — Contemporary Art Intelligence

BonkDAO Loses $20M in Governance Attack on Solana

other · 2026-07-07

On June 30, an attacker took advantage of BonkDAO's governance system on Solana, investing $4.4 million to amass sufficient BONK tokens to approve a harmful proposal that siphoned off around $20 million from the treasury. This malicious initiative, titled "BIP #76 – Sowellian BonkDAO," contained a concealed directive to move 4.426 trillion BONK to a wallet ending in "JHvQ." Voting occurred on July 4-5, with only seven wallets participating out of more than 18,000 members, leading to the proposal's narrow approval. Following the transfer, $188,000 was sent to a centralized exchange, while $19 million was directed to a multisignature wallet. BonkDAO has acknowledged the incident and is collaborating with law enforcement and exchanges. The price of BONK dropped by 7%.

Key facts

  • BonkDAO lost $20 million from its treasury after a governance attack on Solana.
  • The attacker spent $4.4 million to acquire enough BONK tokens to pass a malicious proposal.
  • The proposal 'BIP #76 – Sowellian BonkDAO' was submitted on June 30 and contained a hidden instruction to transfer 4.426 trillion BONK.
  • Voting power was accumulated on July 4-5 via Bybit and Binance, with some tokens borrowed through DeFi lending.
  • Only seven wallets voted out of over 18,000 members, a 2.9% turnout.
  • The proposal passed with 882.38 billion BONK in favor against an 879.95 billion quorum threshold.
  • After the transfer, $188,000 was sent to a centralized exchange; $19 million moved to a multisignature wallet.
  • BonkDAO notified law enforcement and is working with the Solana Foundation, exchanges, and bridges to recover funds.

Entities

Institutions

  • BonkDAO
  • Bybit
  • Binance
  • Lookonchain
  • Chainalysis
  • Solana Foundation
  • Upbit
  • Kraken
  • CoinMarketCap
  • NFT Plazas

Locations

  • South Korea
  • United States

Sources