How much was lost in the BONK Inu hack?

The BONK Inu hack resulted in $150K in losses on January 18, 2023.

What attack technique was used in the BONK Inu exploit?

The BONK Inu exploit utilized Rugpull. Understanding this attack vector is critical for smart contract auditors and developers building secure DeFi protocols.

How can developers prevent similar smart contract attacks?

Preventing smart contract hacks requires a combination of secure coding practices, thorough security audits, and understanding common attack vectors like reentrancy, oracle manipulation, and access control flaws. Smart Contract Hacking (SCH) provides hands-on training to help developers and auditors identify and prevent vulnerabilities before deployment.

BONK Inu Hack

TOTAL LOST $150K

Low Jan 18, 2023 Rugpull

Affected Chain 2023 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1393 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

BONK Inu fake token was rugged on the Polygon network. The scammers withdrew about $150k USD of USDC from liquidity pairs.

Details of the Exploit

The BONK Inu ERC20 contract contains onlyOwner function with the minting ability. Also, the scammer didn't lock his LP tokens so he did both steps to rug users: 1) remove liquidity from pairs and 2) sell tokens to drain all left liquidity. Estimate losses are about $150k USD.

Block Data Reference

Scammer address:

https://polygonscan.com/address/0xbcefc34e…bb9e72

Minting tx:

https://polygonscan.com/tx/0xd043614e…cae655

Remove liquidity:

https://polygonscan.com/tx/0x72ddca4c…196202

Sell BONK:

https://polygonscan.com/tx/0xb6f40cd7…c216fe

Transfer USDC to another address:

https://polygonscan.com/tx/0xf64652b1…fe1b0e

https://polygonscan.com/tx/0xd0e7e5fc…7e4f57

https://polygonscan.com/tx/0x5abc0855…5fd074

Incident Report

Protocol / Project BONK Inu

Date of Incident January 18, 2023

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Token

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull

Affected Token BONK

Official Website toninu.tech

Protocol Twitter/X @toninutools

Team Anonymous

Source Code Unverified

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories

Toncoin Ecosystem

Protocol Links

What the Attacker Needed to Succeed

Understanding the prerequisites for this type of attack helps auditors identify protocols that are most at risk and helps developers build better defenses.

Technical Knowledge Deep understanding of rugpull and Solidity and EVM internals

Capital Required Seed capital to cover gas and initial position setup

On-Chain Access Ability to interact with smart contracts and deploy a custom exploit contract

Protocol Analysis Identification of the exploitable vulnerability in BONK Inu's contract logic - root cause: token

Execution Speed Precise transaction ordering and timing to exploit the vulnerability within a single atomic block

Obfuscation Plan A strategy to launder and move stolen funds - typically through mixers, cross-chain bridges, or decentralized DEX swaps to resist tracing

What Auditors Should Check

Could this have been caught in audit? Hard to catch — private key / OpSec failures are outside smart contract audit scope

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to BONK Inu, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (January 2023).

Verify all logic paths related to Rugpull are guarded by proper access controls and input validation
Review privileged functions (owner, admin, governance) for potential abuse vectors - centralization risks should be documented and bounded with timelocks or multi-sigs

Master these auditing techniques with hands-on labs and real exploit scenarios in the Smart Contract Hacking course.

Free Trial

Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://twitter.com/PeckShieldAlert/status/1615549237932224512

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Token
Year 2023

Learn to Prevent the Next BONK Inu

The BONK Inu hack is one of many attacks that skilled auditors are trained to detect before deployment. Master real exploit patterns and defense techniques with hands-on Web3 security training.

Start Free Trial Browse Attack Library