An anonymous wallet managed to withdraw approximately US$ 21,2 million from BonkDAO’s treasury after using BONK tokens purchased in advance to approve a governance proposal created by the attacker himself.
The movement involved acquiring about US$ 4,4 million in BONK tokens over two days. With this amount, the wallet reached the minimum limit needed to participate in the vote and approved a billion-token transfer.
According to analyses of blockchain movements, the attacker began preparing the action on June 30, when he submitted a proposal requesting the sending of 4,426 trillion BONK to a wallet under his control.
The vote required at least 1% of the token’s total supply to reach quorum. As BONK’s circulating supply was close to 88 trillion units, the wallet needed to control approximately 879 billion tokens.
In the days that followed, the wallet acquired 882,285 billion BONK at major exchanges, including Bybit and Binance. The purchased amount was sufficient to exceed the minimum threshold required and allow the proposal to be approved.
After gathering the necessary tokens, the wallet voted in favor of the proposal using the entire acquired balance. With approval, the 4,426 trillion BONK were transferred to addresses controlled by the voting participant.
Blockchain analytics companies also identified similar movements. According to information shared by specialists in on-chain tracking, part of the tokens used in the vote would have been bought on exchanges and another part obtained through DeFi platforms.
About nine hours after the approval, a portion of the funds was sent to an exchange, while most remained associated with a new structure called “BONK 2.0”, created to manage the transferred resources.
BonkDAO confirmed the loss of the funds and said it identified wallets related to the acquisition of the tokens used in the vote. The organization also stated that it notified authorities and began coordinating with exchanges, blockchain bridges, and the Solana Foundation to manage the situation.
After the case was made public, the BONK token fell in the market. The asset was even traded near US$ 0,00000438, down 7,4% in 24 hours, although it still accumulated weekly gains close to 5%.
The episode sparked a discussion within the cryptocurrency community about the limits of decentralized governance. Some participants believe the vote followed the rules established by the DAO, while others point out that using voting power for personal benefit may represent a violation of governance principles.
World Liberty Financial consultant Ogle questioned the classification of the case as a crime and said on X:
"Someone legitimately bought a lot of tokens, proposed a vote in the DAO, the vote was approved with practically no opposition, and the proposal was executed"
Meanwhile, David Schwartz, Ripple’s emeritus CTO, argued that controlling a collective treasury vote to obtain personal gains could amount to fraud, noting that governance participants have responsibilities to other members of the organization.
