Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

Bonk (CRYPTO: BONK) plummeted on Monday after hackers drained nearly $20 million worth of the memecoin from the project’s treasury.

‘Malicious Governance Proposal’BonkDAO, the decentralized autonomous organization tied to the Solana (CRYPTO: SOL)-based cryptocurrency, said that it became the target of a “malicious governance proposal,” resulting in the loss of tokens.

BonkDAO added that it has traced the wallets linked to the hack and is currently coordinating with major exchanges, bridges, and the Solana Foundation to “manage the situation.”

“Law enforcement has been notified. BonkDAO continues to work with relevant parties to recover funds and identify those responsible,” it said.

What Really Happened?According to blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, the attack began on June 30 when an anonymous wallet submitted a proposal to drain BONK’s treasury.

Then, over the weekend, a separate wallet acquired $8 million worth of BONK through exchange purchases and DeFi borrowing to secure 1% of the coin’s total supply—enough to pass the proposal.

The attacker drained $20 million into an exploiter wallet. Of this amount, they transferred $188,000 to a cryptocurrency exchange, likely to cash out, while sending the remaining $19 million to a multisig wallet, where the funds remain.

BONK Loses Further Ground The massive hack added to the mounting challenges plaguing the dog-themed memecoin, which has already plunged 40% year-to-date and 80% over the last year.

It remains the third-largest meme coin in the Solana ecosystem, with a market capitalization exceeding $390 million. At its peak, it was valued at over $4 billion.

Price Action: At the time of writing, BONK was exchanging hands at $0.000004434, down 7.84% in the last 24 hours, according to data from Benzinga Pro.

Photo Courtesy: LEE WA DA on Shutterstock.com

Photo Courtesy: Akif CUBUK on Shutterstock.com

Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

© 2026 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.

11h35 ▪ 6 min read ▪ by Luc Jose A.

Summarize this article with:

While most altcoins plunge and see their market capitalization fall to its lowest level since December 2023, Solana follows a radically different trajectory. Unlike a pressured market, the network attracts capital at a sustained pace and fuels renewed interest around its SOL token. This decoupling, rare in the crypto ecosystem, intrigues both investors and analysts alike. Behind this resistance are two distinct drivers: a fundamental dynamic supported by the network and a speculative momentum that further strengthens its attractiveness.

In brief Solana stands out from the altcoin slump thanks to strong growth in its on-chain activity and a continuous inflow of capital. The tokenization of assets and DeFi accelerate network adoption, with record volumes and a number of active addresses now exceeding Ethereum’s in this segment. Memecoins and Pump.fun revive speculation, generating a new wave of liquidity that supports demand for the SOL token. Prediction markets enrich the ecosystem, while signals from derivative markets suggest caution regarding SOL’s ability to extend its rally. The Explosion of Tokenized Assets and DeFi on Solana Solana’s bullish momentum found its initial anchor point on June 23, a key date marking a historic milestone for the blockchain. On-chain data reveal the following financial milestones :

The cumulative volume of tokenized stock transfers on the network officially exceeded $10 billion, driven by the introduction of SpaceX company stock trading by the Backpack platform ; The total value of tokenized assets on Solana, excluding stablecoins, reached an all-time high of $3.5 billion, up from just $2.7 billion a month earlier ; The network now has 294,274 active addresses dedicated to the tokenization industry (S&P 500 stock indices, Nasdaq-100, and corporate credits), significantly ahead of its main competitor Ethereum, which records 204,955 on its side. While the rest of the crypto market sank into a prolonged bearish trend, Solana thus began an upward trajectory completely disconnected from the traditional altcoin sector indices. This technical and operational leadership, supported by the integration of corporate credit tokens and leading stock indices, enabled SOL to break major resistance levels.

By capturing the majority of active addresses in the sector compared to the Ethereum ecosystem, the blockchain transformed its infrastructure into an unmissable liquidity hub, propelling the price of SOL to its highest level in 30 days, settling at 83 dollars.

The Fervor of Memecoins and the Return of Pump.fun to the Forefront Beyond the fundamentals of tokenization, the retail market injected a second wave of liquidity through a surge of intense activity on the memecoin segment. The trigger was the launch of the The Black Bull (ANSEM) token via the Pump.fun platform, which immediately rekindled speculators’ interest. This asset reached a market capitalization of $60 million within two days, before continuing its run to hit an all-time high of $112 million.

The project’s deployment remained opaque, the anonymous developer having chosen to allocate about 65% of the total supply directly to the public wallet of crypto influencer Ansem, a distribution that nonetheless mobilized 74,000 unique addresses during its first three days of existence.

This sectoral effervescence directly benefited the network’s native infrastructures, foremost among them the PUMP token of the Pump.fun platform, whose weekly gains of 27% allowed it to re-enter the top 100 largest global crypto capitalizations with a valuation of $630 million.

Such enthusiasm demonstrates the return of strong liquidity. Retail investors massively choose Solana for its speed of execution. This speculative frenzy, although volatile, fuels a daily transaction volume that mechanically supports demand for the SOL token, essential for paying gas fees, reinforcing buying pressure on the spot market against exhausted sellers.

The Conquest of Prediction Markets and Derivative Arbitrage Meanwhile, the ecosystem diversifies in a more strategic way with the launch of the “World” prediction markets integrated directly into the Phantom wallet, aiming to capture the enthusiasm of bettors with the World Cup frenzy, in direct competition with Polymarket.

This project collected nearly $890,000 in total value locked (TVL) in just forty-eight hours, while the Jupiter aggregator deployed its own version of prediction markets in beta testing phase. Thus, this extension of use cases towards prediction markets brings a new utility dimension to the network, attracting a betting audience that generates constant financial flows decoupled from the classic cycles of decentralized finance.

All these factors outline a complex outlook for Solana, dependent on the long-term viability of these capital flows. While on-chain activity proves particularly vibrant, examining derivative markets invites a much more nuanced analysis of the forces at play. Indeed, the appetite for leverage has cooled sharply, with the annualized funding rate for SOL perpetual futures contracts falling to 3% after peaking at 11% when the price broke through 75 dollars.

Knowing that a healthy bull market generally requires a funding rate between 6% and 12% to offset capital costs, this marked decline indicates strong hesitation among traders to bet on an immediate rise to 90 dollars. The short-term future will thus depend on the network’s ability to convert speculative enthusiasm into sustainable commitment, under the risk of seeing this decoupling fade amid the persistent gloom of the overall crypto market.

Maximize your Cointribune experience with our "Read to Earn" program! For every article you read, earn points and access exclusive rewards. Sign up now and start earning benefits.

Join the program

A

A

Lien copié

Luc Jose A.

Diplômé de Sciences Po Toulouse et titulaire d'une certification consultant blockchain délivrée par Alyra, j'ai rejoint l'aventure Cointribune en 2019. Convaincu du potentiel de la blockchain pour transformer de nombreux secteurs de l'économie, j'ai pris l'engagement de sensibiliser et d'informer le grand public sur cet écosystème en constante évolution. Mon objectif est de permettre à chacun de mieux comprendre la blockchain et de saisir les opportunités qu'elle offre. Je m'efforce chaque jour de fournir une analyse objective de l'actualité, de décrypter les tendances du marché, de relayer les dernières innovations technologiques et de mettre en perspective les enjeux économiques et sociétaux de cette révolution en marche.

DISCLAIMER

The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this article belong solely to the author, and should not be taken as investment advice. Do your own research before taking any investment decisions.

The Solana influencer has sent roughly $6.7M in tokens to more than 700 wallets onchain, even as he controls about 60% of the supply.

Crypto influencer Ansem has airdropped about $7 million worth of the $ANSEM memecoin to Solana users, and said he will keep distributing tokens as the price rises in a push to grow the holder base to 1 million wallets.

Ansem, who posts under the handle @blknoiz06 and counts close to 1 million followers on X, has sent roughly $6.7 million in $ANSEM to more than 700 wallets, onchain analytics firm Bubblemaps said in a post on X. One wallet received more than $1 million, six received more than $100,000 each, 40 received more than $10,000, 300 received more than $1,000, and 400 received more than $150, according to Bubblemaps. The token currently has about 25,000 holders, Ansem said, short of the 1 million he is targeting.

The campaign is a live test of one of crypto's most contested ideas: that a person's online reputation can be packaged into a tradable asset. $ANSEM has no product, revenue or roadmap, and its value rests almost entirely on the attention of the influencer whose name it carries. That makes the airdrop both a marketing engine and a concentration risk, because the same wallet funding the giveaways still holds the majority of the supply.

Fee Redistribution“Sent out another round of the airdrops, have airdropped about ~$7M so far, will do more as market cap goes higher," Ansem wrote on X. “Goal is to get $ANSEM to 1M holders, currently at ~25k holders.”

Ansem has framed the distributions as a way to return the creator fees he earns on the memecoin launchpad pumpfun to holders, rather than as a token sale. He did not deploy $ANSEM himself. A separate wallet created the token on pumpfun around June 17 and transferred the bulk of the supply to Ansem's address, onchain tracker Lookonchain said. That deployer spent about $6,300 to launch the token, bought 792.45 million $ANSEM, sent 650 million to Ansem and later sold the rest for about $11,800, netting roughly $5,500, according to Lookonchain.

Ansem now controls the largest single position. He holds about 604 million tokens, or roughly 60% of the supply, data from Bubblemaps how.

Token Touched a Nine-Figure Valuation$ANSEM, nicknamed "The Black Bull," was trading at about $0.10 with a circulating market cap near $43 million and a fully diluted valuation of about $105 million as of 5:30 p.m. ET on June 29, according to CoinGecko. The token rose about 22% over the prior 24 hours, compared with a 7% gain in Solana's SOL and a 1% rise in Bitcoin.

The token hit a record of about $0.12 earlier on June 29, CoinGecko data show, briefly pushing its fully diluted valuation above $120 million. Reported market caps for the token have varied widely depending on the source and whether the calculation uses circulating or total supply.

Reputation CoinsThe airdrop has reopened a debate over so-called key-opinion-leader, or KOL, coins, tokens tied to an individual's social following rather than a product.

“$ANSEM is a fascinating example of tokenized attention and reputation," DeFi researcher Ignas wrote on X. He argued that influencer coins are surprisingly less reviled than other ways creators monetize an audience, because buyers opt in. “You can opt out and simply not buy. If you bought and lost money, all you can blame is yourself," he wrote, adding that most such tokens will fail because they have "no revenue or business tied to them."

Ignas also flagged a tension in the airdrop model. The tokens being distributed, he noted, are "coming from someone else's degen pockets" — funded by new buyers rather than business cash flow — and warned that recasting a memecoin as a "revenue token" is "usually bad news" for the price.

Crypto analyst 0xNairolf called the token "a perfect reminder that one of the biggest unsolved markets in crypto is letting people speculate on other people," predicting that "whoever cracks that is the next pumpfun."

The episode lands as Solana's memecoin activity recovers. The Defiant has reported on a broader revival in low-cap Solana tokens, and influencer-driven coins have repeatedly drawn scrutiny, from Iggy Azalea's MOTHER to the contested NEIRO listings that Ansem himself helped move.

Polarizing FigureAnsem is a polarizing figure. In October 2024, onchain investigator ZachXBT publicly accused him of promoting a series of low-cap Solana memecoins in a way that resembled pump-and-dump dynamics, arguing his reach could leave followers holding losses. Ansem rejected the criticism, defending his early calls on tokens such as Dogwifhat. The accusations were not accompanied by formal findings and remain unproven.

Concentration is the more immediate concern. With roughly 60% of the supply in a single wallet, the holder doing the airdropping also has the ability to move the price sharply.

Ansem has said further airdrops will follow as the market cap climbs, tying continued distributions to the token's price.