Buy Bonk

BONK is a memecoin on Solana. It launched as a Christmas giveaway at the end of 2022, and it has since had more built around it than almost any other dog themed token: a trading bot, a decentralized exchange, a launchpad and a treasury controlled by token holder voting.

That last part is the reason to read this page carefully rather than to relax. A memecoin with real products and a real treasury is not automatically safer than one with neither. Our guide to memecoins explains the category, and our comparison of Solana and Ethereum covers the network BONK runs on.

Where did BONK come from?

BONK launched on December 25, 2022, created by an anonymous group describing themselves as Solana builders. The timing was deliberate. FTX had collapsed weeks earlier, Solana had been closely associated with it, and activity on the network had fallen sharply. BONK was framed as a morale project: something free, silly and shared, aimed at getting people using Solana again.

The distribution matched that framing. One hundred trillion tokens were created, and around half were given away to the Solana community rather than sold. Recipients included NFT holders and projects, traders, artists, collectors and developers, with a large allocation set aside specifically for people building on the network. The remainder was split between early contributors, a treasury controlled by the project's decentralized autonomous organization, liquidity and marketing.

There is no company behind BONK in the way there is behind a listed technology stock. The people who created it are not publicly identified, and decisions about the treasury are made through token voting rather than by a board answerable to anyone.

What is BONK, technically?

Stripped of the branding, BONK is a standard token on Solana.

It is an SPL token. BONK transactions are Solana transactions, confirmed by Solana validators, with network fees paid in SOL rather than in BONK. Holding or moving BONK requires a small amount of SOL in the same wallet. Its mint authority and freeze authority are both revoked. On the token contract itself, no party can create additional BONK and no party can freeze your tokens in your wallet. This is verifiable directly on chain and it is one of the few genuinely reassuring technical facts about the asset. The supply can only fall. One hundred trillion tokens were created at launch and the total has come down since through burns. Nothing in the design can add to it. It carries no rights and pays nothing. Holding BONK does not entitle you to revenue, dividends, interest or a claim on any asset, including the assets held by the BONK treasury or the earnings of any product in the ecosystem.

What has actually been built around BONK?

More than with most memecoins, and this is the main thing that distinguishes BONK from tokens like dogwifhat that deliberately have nothing attached. It is also where the caveats live, because these are separate products and owning BONK does not give you a share of any of them.

BONKbot. A Telegram based trading bot for Solana, launched in late 2023, which charges a percentage fee on each transaction and directs a share of that fee to the BONK treasury. BonkSwap. A non custodial decentralized exchange built around BONK. BONK Rewards. A locking program in which BONK is deposited for a fixed period in exchange for a share of ecosystem revenue, paid mainly in other assets. It is not staking, and it is covered in more detail below. LetsBONK.fun. A token launchpad, live since April 2025, which at times has been one of the busiest on Solana. BONK's own site notes that it is independently operated and is not endorsed or vetted by the BONK Foundation. Wallet and merchant integrations. BONK is supported across a large number of Solana applications, and was distributed as a promotion with the Solana Mobile phone.

Two honest qualifications. First, these products are run by separate teams under separate arrangements, and a holder of BONK has no legal claim on their revenue and no contractual say in how they operate. Second, the products in this category compete hard and their standing changes quickly, so any claim you read about one of them being the largest or busiest should be checked against a current source rather than assumed.

Do BONK burns reduce the supply?

Burning means sending tokens to an address that has no known private key, so they can never be moved again. BONK's supply has come down meaningfully from its launch figure through burns.

The important distinction is that BONK's burns are discretionary rather than automatic. There is no protocol rule that takes a slice of every transaction and destroys it. Instead, burns happen when the treasury or an ecosystem product decides to run one: a share of BONKbot revenue used to buy and burn, a large community burn event, a launchpad directing part of its fees to buybacks.

That means burns depend on decisions and on the products continuing to generate revenue. They are not a guarantee, they do not set or support a price, and nothing in the design commits to reducing the supply by any particular amount. There is also no single authoritative ledger of every burn, so cumulative figures circulating online should be treated as estimates.

The governance attack of July 2026

In July 2026 the BONK treasury was drained through its own voting system, and any honest assessment of the token has to sit with what happened.

An attacker spent roughly four and a half million dollars buying BONK on major exchanges, accumulating slightly more than one percent of the supply. That was just above the amount required to reach quorum in the DAO's voting system. They then submitted a proposal instructing the treasury to transfer trillions of BONK to an address they controlled. It passed with a handful of wallets voting, overwhelming approval among those votes and a turnout of under three percent, and roughly twenty million dollars of BONK left the treasury automatically once it did.

The attacker subsequently moved most of the proceeds to a multisignature wallet and sold a portion of the BONK they had bought to mount the attack. BONK DAO confirmed the incident as a malicious governance attack, worked with exchanges, bridges and the Solana Foundation to restrict movement of the funds, and involved law enforcement. CoinDesk's report sets out the sequence in detail.

Nothing about this compromised the BONK token contract. Your tokens in your wallet were never at risk from it. What it did expose is that a treasury governed by token voting with low participation can be captured by anyone willing to buy enough of the token, and that "community owned" is a description of a structure rather than a promise of protection.

What are the risks of holding BONK?

No underlying business. BONK produces no revenue for holders and holds no assets on their behalf. There is no earnings figure and no cash flow to value it against, so there is no floor set by fundamentals. Sentiment driven pricing. Memecoin prices move with attention, social media activity, listings and broader risk appetite. Attention is not a durable asset and can leave quickly. Extreme volatility and drawdowns. BONK has fallen very sharply from previous highs, and long periods of decline are a normal feature of the asset rather than an anomaly. Governance capture. As July 2026 demonstrated, treasury decisions can be forced through by whoever can afford enough tokens to meet quorum when turnout is low. Ecosystem dependency and third party risk. Much of the case for BONK rests on products that are separately operated, that compete in fast moving categories, and that carry their own smart contract, custody and operational risks. Concentration. A meaningful share of the supply sits in a small number of addresses, including exchange wallets. Large holders can move the market. Anonymous origins. The creators are not publicly identified. There is no disclosure obligation, no audited reporting and no accountability mechanism if plans change. Competition. New memecoins launch constantly and cost nothing to create, including on Solana itself. Attention rotates between them. Network dependency. BONK relies entirely on Solana. Outages, congestion or problems on that network affect your ability to move the token. Limited investor protection. Memecoins sit largely outside the frameworks that govern regulated investments. There is no prospectus, no licensed issuer and no conduct regime standing behind the token itself. No federal protection. Crypto assets are not covered by FDIC deposit insurance or SIPC protection. You should be prepared to lose everything you put in.

Buying BONK with US dollars on CoinJar

CoinJar has operated since 2013 and lists BONK against US dollars, so you can buy, sell and hold it without converting through another cryptocurrency first. Current charges are on our fees page, and live US dollar rates are on our cryptocurrency prices page.

CoinJar, Inc. is registered with FinCEN as a money services business and holds money transmitter licenses in a growing number of states, NMLS ID 2492913. You can check whether CoinJar operates in your state before signing up. Registration and licensing cover how CoinJar operates as a business. They are not an endorsement of any crypto asset listed on the platform.

How is BONK taxed in the US?

The IRS treats crypto assets such as BONK as property. A taxable disposal can occur when you sell BONK for US dollars, exchange it for another crypto asset, spend it or give it away, and gains or losses are generally reported on your federal return.

The IRS sets out its approach on its digital assets page. Our guide to pulling a transaction history for tax reporting covers the practical side. This is general information, not tax advice. Consider speaking to a qualified tax professional about your circumstances.