Monero Faces 51% Attack Risk as Qubic Claims Network Dominance

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. 🤡

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

• Ethereum Classic lost millions to multiple attacks in 2020. Ouch. 🥴
• 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? 🔥

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! 💥

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! 🍵

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