BonkDAO has lost about $21.2 million worth of BONK tokens after a trader used the project’s governance system to approve a proposal that transferred treasury funds to a wallet under their control.
On-chain data shared by blockchain analytics platform Lookonchain showed the trader spent around $4.4 million to acquire enough voting power before submitting and approving the proposal. Rather than exploiting a smart contract vulnerability, the individual used BonkDAO’s existing governance rules to complete the transfer.
Someone spent $4.4M to steal $21.2M from the #BONK treasury, making a profit of $16.8M.
How did it happen?👇
➡️ On June 30, the attacker submitted a governance proposal to transfer 4.426T $BONK($21.2M) from the treasury to a wallet he controlled (9bxW…JHvQ).… pic.twitter.com/VElnDuazki
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) July 7, 2026
The proposal, known as BIP #76, was submitted on June 30 under the “Sowellian BonkDAO” framework. It instructed the DAO to send 4.426 trillion BONK tokens, valued at about $21.2 million, to the proposer’s wallet.
How did one trader gain control of the vote?
To meet the governance quorum, the trader accumulated roughly 882.3 billion BONK tokens over several days, spending about $4.4 million through purchases linked to Binance and Bybit wallets.
The acquired tokens were then used to vote in favor of the proposal. On-chain records show only seven wallets participated in the vote, with the trader controlling almost all of the voting power.
The proposal passed with 99.9% approval after reaching the required quorum, allowing the treasury transfer to execute automatically.
Following the transfer, about 40 billion BONK tokens, worth roughly $188,000, were moved to OKX, while the remaining tokens stayed in another wallet controlled by the recipient.
Low voter participation exposes DAO governance
The incident has drawn attention to the risks facing decentralized autonomous organizations when governance participation is low.
Although the proposal included language about governance improvements and treasury management, its executable action authorized the transfer of the treasury funds. With only a small number of wallets voting, acquiring enough tokens to influence the outcome proved far cheaper than the value of the assets taken.
The event has renewed discussion about quorum requirements, voting participation, and treasury protection across DAO-based crypto projects.
Latest incident adds to growing crypto security concerns
The BonkDAO case follows several recent security incidents affecting decentralized finance and memecoin projects.
Earlier this year, memecoin launch platform DxSale disclosed a $7.3 million exploit involving liquidity providers on BNB Chain. More recently, security firm Blockaid warned of an active exploit targeting DeFi platform Summer.fi after attackers reportedly drained around $6 million before the alert was issued.
Unlike those incidents, the BonkDAO treasury loss did not result from a software exploit. Instead, it exposed how weak governance participation can allow a well-funded participant to legally gain control of a DAO’s treasury under existing protocol rules.
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