Qubic mining pool briefly controlled over 52% of Monero hashrate. Attack caused 8% XMR price drop; QUBIC token rose 4% on the day. Debate continues on true extent and motives behind the 51% attack. The Qubic mining pool team has successfully carried out a 51% attack on the Monero network, taking control of more than half of the hashrate, SlowMist founder Yu Xian said. This experiment was previously announced by Qubic’s head and IOTA co-founder Sergey Ivancheglo, who described the initiative as an ”economic demonstration.” According to him, the mining pool team has no intention of maliciously interfering with the network. According to SlowMist’s founder, Qubic’s share of the hashrate among Monero miners reached 52.36% at one point. However, information is circulating on the network that the pool managed to surpass the 53% threshold, reaching a hashrate of 2.65 GH/s. Xian noted that the economic benefit of the attack remains questionable due to its high costs. Ledger CTO Charles Guillemet estimated that maintaining such control costs about $75 million daily. He also pointed out that Monero has limited options to address the issue, though Guillemet believes a complete takeover of the network is a likely outcome. Meanwhile, on the X platform (formerly Twitter), a community member posted a message attributed to dkat, reportedly the head of Qubic’s core developers. According to dkat, the project team ”besieged” Monero and effectively ”starved” other miners. They had at least three opportunities to reorganize up to 10 blocks, which would have caused a network failure, but dkat emphasized that Qubic has no such intentions. Some users have expressed skepticism about whether the attack was truly successful. SeraiDEX lead developer Luke Parker noted that if the attack had been fully effective, there would have been no blocks mined by others. He suggested the Qubic team was likely just fortunate. User tuxsudo agreed, citing MiningPoolStats data and raising suspicion that Qubic disabled their hashrate API. According to MiningPoolStats, the two largest mining pools processed 44 of the last 100 Monero blocks. As a reminder, Qubic employs an economic incentive-based approach. It rewards miners with QUBIC tokens to attract operators to its pool. The mined Monero (XMR) is then exchanged for stablecoins, which are used to buy QUBIC, creating an economic ecosystem that supports its computing power. A successful 51% attack enables the project team to reorganize blocks, censor transactions, or perform double spending. Following the news, the price of XMR fell by 8%, while QUBIC’s price increased by 4% on the daily chart. Implications for Monero and the Broader Crypto Community The Qubic attack underscores the ongoing vulnerabilities even in privacy-focused cryptocurrencies like Monero. While the attack was framed as a controlled economic demonstration, it highlights the risks of centralization in mining power. Such dominance can disrupt transaction finality and erode trust in the network's security, potentially affecting user confidence. The mixed community reactions reflect broader debates on balancing economic incentives and network integrity. Going forward, this event may prompt Monero developers to consider protocol adjustments or encourage diversification of mining resources to better safeguard against future 51% attacks. This incident also reignites discussions about the importance of decentralized mining pools and potential protocol upgrades to mitigate 51% attacks, balancing scalability with network security and resilience.
