A governance attack on BONK’s decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) treasury began on June 30 when an anonymous wallet submitted a proposal to transfer treasury funds to its own control, according to Chainalysis. To pass, the proposal required votes equal to 1% of BONK’s circulating supply, the mandatory quorum threshold. Over July 4-5, a separate wallet amassed precisely that amount, deploying approximately $4.4 million to purchase BONK tokens on Binance and Bybit and leveraging decentralized finance (DeFi) lending protocols to secure additional capital, as reported by Lookonchain.
The proposal, titled “BIP #76 – Sowellian BonkDAO,” received support from only seven voters, with a participation rate of 2.9% among over 18,000 DAO members. It narrowly cleared quorum, passing with 882.38 billion BONK in favor against an 879.95 billion requirement. The vote was essentially a single entity endorsing its own motion, with the proposal’s language resembling a manifesto rather than a governance action, toutishing “rebuilding from the ashes” and offering token rewards to “YES” voters. A critical instruction buried in the proposal directed the transfer of 4.43 trillion BONK to the attacker’s wallet.
By July 6, the attacker had secured sufficient tokens to trigger the vote. Upon passing, roughly $20 million worth of BONK was transferred from the treasury to the attacker’s wallet.
The attacker’s holdings were sufficient to secure the vote, and upon its passage, approximately $20 million in BONK tokens were transferred from the DAO treasury to the attacker’s wallet, effectively draining the organization’s reserves.
