BONK DAO lost $20 million in tokens due to a governance attack: the token dropped by 10%
The decentralized autonomous organization BONK DAO has fallen victim to a sophisticated attack on its governance system. The attacker used a malicious proposal to withdraw approximately $20 million in BONK tokens from the DAO treasury. This event has already caused a sharp decline in the memecoin's price, with the token losing more than 10% of its value in the last 24 hours.
Attack Mechanism: How the Vote Was Compromised
It has been confirmed that the attacker did not exploit vulnerabilities in smart contracts or code. Instead, they used the legitimate voting process on the Realms platform on the Solana network. Before launching the attack, the hacker purchased approximately $4 million worth of BONK tokens to gain enough voting power to approve their proposal. After its adoption, the governance system allowed the transfer of about $20 million from the DAO treasury to wallets controlled by the attacker.
The BONK team has already identified the exchange addresses used to accumulate the voting stake. They are now actively cooperating with cryptocurrency exchanges, the Solana Foundation, cross-chain bridge operators, and law enforcement agencies to track the stolen funds and attempt to recover them.
Market Reaction and Consequences
Part of the stolen BONK has already begun flowing into centralized exchanges, indicating the attacker's attempts to convert the assets into other cryptocurrencies or fiat. This is putting additional downward pressure on the token's price, which was already declining amid panic among holders.
This incident once again raises fundamental security questions for all DAOs. Unlike smart contract exploits, this attack targeted the social and governance infrastructure. The absence of protective mechanisms such as timelocks (execution delays), multi-signature requirements for large transactions, and quorum thresholds made the treasury vulnerable to a single, well-funded proposal.
Expert Opinion: The attack on BONK DAO is a wake-up call for the entire DeFi sector. Projects urgently need to review their governance mechanisms. A simple "one token, one vote" system without protective barriers makes treasuries easy prey for those willing to spend $4 million to steal $20 million. Investors should pay attention not only to a project's code but also to how its governance processes are protected.