How much was lost in the BonqDAO hack?

The BonqDAO hack resulted in $120M in losses on February 02, 2023.

What attack technique was used in the BonqDAO exploit?

The BonqDAO exploit utilized Oracle Issue. 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.

BonqDAO Hack

TOTAL LOST $120M

Critical #72 All-Time Feb 02, 2023 Oracle Issue

Affected Chain 2023 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #72 By amount stolen

Auditors 1 Prior security audit

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

The BonqDAO and AllianceBlock suffered a loss of $120 million due to a vulnerability in the BonqDAO smart contract. Trading and liquidity have been suspended to prevent the stolen tokens from being converted into other assets. The Bonq protocol has been suspended and the team is working on a solution to allow users to withdraw the remaining collateral.

Details of the Exploit

BonqDAO has suffered an exploit where its price oracle was manipulated to increase the WALBT price. The manipulation allowed the attacker to mint over 100 million BEUR. The attacker then manipulated the WALBT price and liquidated multiple troves.

The attacker withdrew the illicit gains, 113.8 million WALBT and 98 million BEUR, valued over $10 million. The dumping of these tokens resulted in a major drop in their value, with WALBT dropping by more than 50% and BEUR dropping by 34%.

Block Data Reference

Examples of exploit TXs:

https://polygonscan.com/tx/0x31957ecc…d51b19

https://polygonscan.com/tx/0xa02d0c3d…7f32b1

Exploiter address:

https://polygonscan.com/address/0xcacf2d28…656642

https://etherscan.io/address/0xcAcf2D28…656642

This is classified as a Oracle Manipulation & Price Manipulation . Compare similar hacks →

Incident Report

Protocol / Project BonqDAO

Date of Incident February 02, 2023

Attack Technique Oracle Issue

Classification Borrowing and Lending

Primary Source View Post-Mortem #1 View Post-Mortem #2 View Post-Mortem #3

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Lending

Affected Token BNQ

Official Website app.bonqdao.com/

Protocol Twitter/X @BonqDAO

Team Public / Doxxed

Source Code Unverified

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories

Ethereum Ecosystem BNB Chain Ecosystem Optimism Ecosystem

Protocol Links

GitHub

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 oracle issue 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 BonqDAO's contract logic - root cause: borrowing and lending

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? Yes — skilled auditors routinely flag Oracle Issue vulnerabilities in code review

Audited by Omniscia — still lost $120M. Prior audits don't guarantee safety, especially after post-audit code changes.

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

Verify all logic paths related to Oracle Issue are guarded by proper access controls and input validation - see the Oracle Manipulation & Price Manipulation attack class for patterns
Audit oracle price feeds for manipulation risks - ensure time-weighted average prices (TWAPs) or multi-source aggregators are used, not spot prices
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.

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Security Audit History

Omniscia 2022-10-18 Report unavailable

Related Attack Classes

The technique used in this hack maps to these vulnerability classes in our security curriculum:

See all Oracle Manipulation & Price Manipulation examples →

Oracle Manipulation & Price Manipulation

Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://www.theblock.co/post/207799/bonqdao-exploited-for-88-mil…
02
Source 2 https://twitter.com/peckshield/status/1620989831479463936
03
Source 3 https://news.coincu.com/163998-bonqdao-stolen-120m-manipulation-…
04
Web Archive https://archive.ph/wip/DDIGt

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

CRITICAL

Attack Vector Oracle Issue
Root Cause Borrowing and Lending
Year 2023

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