BonkDAO lost around $20 million on Monday after a governance attack that the team describes as malicious. An adopted proposal allowed 4.4 trillion BONK tokens to be transferred to the address of a suspected attacker. Will investigators manage to recover the funds?
In brief
- BonkDAO lost $20 million in a malicious governance attack on July 6, 2026.
- The adopted proposal, dubbed “Sowellian BonkDAO,” sent 4.4 trillion BONK tokens to a suspected attacker.
- Kraken and Upbit suspended BONK deposits and withdrawals following the incident.
How did the governance attack drain the cash on Solana?
The incident occurred around 4 a.m. Eastern Time on Monday amid the memecoin buzz on Solana. More than 4.4 trillion BONK tokens, or approximately $19.3 million at the time of writing, have left the BonkDAO 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 his text adopted without centralized human intervention.
Improvement proposal number 76, entitled “Sowellian BonkDAO”, provided in particular to “ rebuild from the ashes » and reward those who voted in favor. However, BonkDAO confirmed on X that the suspicious address, powered by a Bybit account according to Solscan, did not redistribute any tokens.
The token then traveled further. Around 3:30 p.m. Eastern Time, the funds reached a second Solana address ending in “eh42.”
What consequences for exchange platforms and the price of BONK?
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 claims to collaborate with law enforcement and cross-chain bridges in the Solana ecosystem to trace funds.
At the same time, the incident rekindles the debate on the security of on-chain votes in crypto DAOs. Several projects have already suffered similar attacks, usually through the mass purchase of governance tokens before a key vote.
The token fell about 7% in 24 hours, to around $0.0000043. This level, however, remains 93% below its historic record of $0.000058.
BONK reached this peak in December 2024, in the midst of euphoria around memecoins on Solana. The token was then among the top 100 cryptos by capitalization.
BonkDAO promises regular communication as the investigation progresses. The confidence of holders will now depend on the project's ability to recover funds. Other crypto DAOs could nevertheless review their voting mechanisms after this governance flaw.
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