Monero Faces 51% Attack Risk as Qubic Claims Network Dominance

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Qubic, the cheeky little upstart, has casually announced it has passed the 51% hashrate threshold. Now, for those not in the know, this is the point where the fun begins-when the dominant party can reorganize blocks, reverse transactions, or even just throw a hissy fit and censor payments at will. Talk about playing God! 😈

Of course, the crypto market was totally *unshaken* by this announcement. Not. XMR (that’s Monero for the uninitiated) took a dive, dropping 6% in a mere 24 hours to $252. And that was after a 13.5% loss the week before. So yeah, the panic button’s been hit. 📉

The Mechanics – and Dangers – of 51% Control

Now, let’s talk tech. In proof-of-work systems like Monero’s, miners race against each other to add blocks to the blockchain. But if one party controls more than 50% of the network’s computational power, they can totally dominate the game. They can mess with transactions, rewrite history (hello, reorgs), and even double spend. Basically, they become the puppet master. đŸ€Ą

And this isn’t just some theoretical mumbo jumbo, folks. These attacks are real:

  • Ethereum Classic lost millions to multiple attacks in 2020. Ouch. đŸ„Ž
  • Bitcoin Gold suffered more than once, too-2018, 2020, rinse and repeat.
  • Verge can’t catch a break, repeatedly disrupted by these nasty attacks.

Bitcoin’s gargantuan hashrate keeps it mostly safe, but smaller networks? Not so much. They’re like open invitations for chaos. 🎉

How Qubic Pulled It Off

Monero’s RandomX algorithm was supposed to keep things decentralized, resisting ASIC mining, and giving CPUs a fighting chance. But then Qubic popped up and said, “Challenge accepted!” They’ve skyrocketed from less than 2% of Monero’s hashrate in May to over 51%-yeah, you read that right. They’ve done it. 😎

Qubic’s model isn’t just your run-of-the-mill mining scheme. No, no. They’ve got a whole “useful proof-of-work” thing going:

  1. Mine Monero (easy peasy).
  2. Convert rewards to USDT (because why not?).
  3. Buy and burn QUBIC tokens (yes, really, they’re burning money-so punk rock!).

At its peak, Qubic was making Monero mining three times more profitable than the usual route. Guess they’ve cracked the code, huh? đŸ”„

Ledger’s CTO, Charles Guillemet, thinks keeping this up could cost $75 million a day. Yep, you read that right again-$75 million a day. He’s worried it’ll destroy confidence in the network faster than you can say “freaky fast pizza delivery.” 🍕

BitMEX Research added, “If Qubic keeps this up, it could mean total selfish mining. And that’ll send XMR’s value into the abyss.” Good times. 😅

The announcement from Qubic on X

The ‘Experiment’ – and the Fallout

So what’s Qubic’s excuse? Apparently, it’s all a “game-theory experiment.” They claim they didn’t want to destroy Monero, just prove a point about how a smaller protocol can swoop in and take control of a bigger one. So altruistic, right? 🙄

Meanwhile, a vote within Qubic’s community restructured reward payouts to validators, making Monero’s miners scramble for their lunch money and switch to Qubic’s pools. Talk about shaking things up! đŸ’„

Monero fans, not ones to sit back and relax, have retaliated with distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on Qubic’s peripheral services. But don’t worry, the core systems are still chugging along. Ivancheglo, the man behind Qubic, said, “We’re just giving the Monero ‘maxis’ a taste of their own medicine.” Classic! đŸ”

But Qubic insists it hasn’t gone full supervillain yet, claiming it’s holding back on exercising full control to avoid tanking XMR’s price. Still, the mere fact that they *could* do it raises some serious eyebrows about Monero’s security. 🧐

Oh, and by the way, Monero got delisted from Binance in 2024. Authorities are making privacy coins harder to use. Sorry, not sorry? 🧐

A Warning for Other Blockchains

While Monero’s privacy mission makes this particularly worrisome, mid-cap proof-of-work coins everywhere should be shaking in their boots. A sustained 51% attack? Far less expensive for these networks than for Bitcoin. So yeah, they’re sitting ducks. 🎯

For Monero, this isn’t just about double spends or reorgs-it’s about the possibility that one lone entity could wipe out the very censorship resistance and anonymity that made it valuable in the first place. Yikes. 😳

 

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2025-08-13 02:20