Attackers vote themselves $20 million in BONK cryptocurrency
The decentralized finance organization that oversees BONK cryptocurrency announced Monday that attackers had drained $20 million worth of coins from the project.
BonkDAO said in a social media post that it was the victim of a “malicious governance proposal,” or an attack in which holders of a large amount of BONK used that leverage to vote more coins into their wallets.
“During the investigation, BonkDAO identified the exchange wallets used to purchase BONK ahead of the proposal,” the organization said. Crypto news sites reported that the attackers gathered about $4 million of the coin in preparation. BonkDAO did not report a figure.
The organization said it notified law enforcement and “continues to work with relevant parties to recover funds and identify those responsible.” The South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Upbit said that it had temporarily suspended deposits and withdrawals of BONK.
The dog-themed memecoin is a project on the Solana blockchain. BonkDAO itself held about 15 percent of the total amount of available BONK, reports said.
As of Monday afternoon Eastern U.S. time, the price of BONK was down about 7 percent, with an overall market capitalization of about $400 million.
DAO stands for “decentralized autonomous organization,” a structure that allows community members (in this case, BONK holders) to weigh in on decisions about the future of projects. A famous exploitation of cryptocurrency governance occurred in 2022, when an attacker drained about $180 million in reserves from the Beanstalk platform.
Because it corrupts the voting process, a malicious governance proposal differs from better-known hacks that involve smart contracts, the protocols that automatically execute actions according to a platform’s internal rules.
For several years, U.S. authorities have been investigating and prosecuting smart-contract cases, including a $54 million theft from Uranium Finance. In some cases, platforms are able to recover stolen assets. In December, the Federal Trade Commission ordered the platform Nomad to distribute $37.5 million in crypto recovered after a 2022 incident.
References in this story
- BONK!!! (@bonk_inu) on X x.com BonkDAO was the target of a malicious governance proposal resulting in an estimated $20M worth of BONK tokens being drained from the BonkDAO treasury. During the investigation, BonkDAO identified the exchange wallets…
- 봉크(BONK) 입출금 일시 중단 안내 www.upbit.com 봉크(BONK) 입출금 일시 중단 안내
- BonkDAO treasury drained of $20 million in BONK after malicious proposal cryptobriefing.com BonkDAO lost $20 million in BONK tokens through a malicious governance proposal on Solana's Realms platform. Here's how the attack worked and what it means.
- Beanstalk cryptocurrency loses $182m of reserves in flash ‘attack’ www.theguardian.com Raider gains voting rights over digital currency and uses them to transfer contents of treasury
- At least $26 million in crypto stolen from Truebit platform as crypto crime landscape evolves therecord.media The theft continues a trend from the last two years, when hackers stole billions worth of cryptocurrency from both platforms and asset owners.
- NY engineer pleads guilty to stealing millions from two crypto exchanges therecord.media Shakeeb Ahmed, 34, faces up to five years in federal prison for two separate multimillion-dollar hacks in July 2022 of decentralized cryptocurrency exchanges.
- US indicts Maryland man for 2021 theft of $54 million from Uranium Finance therecord.media U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said Spalletta “repeatedly hacked smart contracts to steal millions of dollars’ worth of other people’s money for himself, and destroyed a cryptocurrency exchange in the process.”
- FTC orders crypto platform Nomad to distribute $37.5 million after 2022 theft therecord.media Under a settlement with the FTC, the Nomad platform will have to redistribute stolen funds that white-hat hackers returned to the company after thieves aggressively exploited a vulnerability in 2022.
- Advanced Cyber Threat Intelligence | Recorded Future www.recordedfuture.com Get real-time, actionable cyber threat intelligence with Recorded Future. Mitigate cyber risks, prioritize threats, and proactively secure your business.
- Joe Warminsky (@jwarminsky.bsky.social) bsky.app News Editor at The Record: @therecordmedia.bsky.social [ Tired of bios ] [ Often thinking about music ] [ Etc. ]
