Written by: Oliver, Mars Finance
In the ever-evolving narrative of the crypto world, some names seem to fade from the spotlight. Monero is one of them. As a "living fossil" project that emerged in 2014, it does not promise astonishing yields like DeFi protocols, nor does it ignite social media frenzy like NFTs or meme coins. For years, Monero has been like a silent craftsman, focused on its original mission—to create a truly untraceable and unlinkable digital cash system. Its development does not seek immediate results but rather involves continuous refinement of privacy technology and strengthening of network resilience.
However, this dedication has placed the entire privacy sector on a knife's edge. With tightening global regulations, privacy coins have become the "number one enemy" of compliance. Major mainstream exchanges have delisted them to avoid potential legal risks. From the outside, the challenges facing the privacy sector seem to stem mainly from external pressure from regulatory bodies. However, no one anticipated that a more disruptive crisis would erupt from within the crypto world, directly targeting the most representative flagbearer in this sector.
On August 12, 2025, the emerging Layer 1 project Qubic released a brief but information-rich statement on social media: "The Monero (XMR) experiment is proceeding as planned, and everything will be revealed at the appropriate time." This tweet was like a thunderclap, bringing to light the near-fatal network hash rate crisis that Monero was facing and unreservedly associating itself with this storm. Was this a reckless display of skill, a deliberate attack, or a "social experiment" aimed at revealing the industry's chronic issues? To unravel this mystery, we must turn our attention to the orchestrator of the storm.
Behind this storm is a figure who has left a profound mark on the crypto industry—Sergey Ivancheglyo (known in the community as CfB). His name is always associated with disruptive innovation. From the early introduction of pure PoS (Proof of Stake) consensus for the NXT project to later becoming a core force of IOTA, pushing the groundbreaking technology of "Directed Acyclic Graph" (DAG) into the public eye, Ivancheglyo's career is a history of challenging existing paradigms. His split from the IOTA Foundation and the subsequent public debates surrounding it further highlight his tendency to pursue his technological vision in a purer and less constrained manner outside traditional organizational frameworks. Qubic is a continuation of this style—a latest attempt to fundamentally redefine the value of PoW (Proof of Work).
"Useful" Hash Power and "Economic Attack"
The core idea of Qubic is "Useful Proof of Work" (uPoW). Traditional PoW, like that used by Bitcoin, requires miners to solve meaningless hash puzzles to maintain network security, which is considered a massive waste of energy. Qubic, on the other hand, attempts to make this hash power "useful," directing it towards AI training, scientific computing, and other fields. Their system allows miners to perform these AI tasks while directing part of their hash power to mine on other PoW networks through a mechanism called "outsourced computing," with Monero being their first target.
The brilliance of this mechanism lies in its creation of a powerful economic incentive. Qubic miners can earn rewards in their native token QUBIC while also gaining additional profits from mining Monero. More disruptively, Qubic officials sell the mined XMR on the open market, using the proceeds to buy back and burn QUBIC tokens, creating deflationary pressure that drives up the price of QUBIC. A dangerous flywheel is thus formed: a higher QUBIC price attracts more miners, more miners mean stronger hash power, and stronger hash power can mine more XMR, which can then be sold to further increase the QUBIC price.
This is not a traditional hash power attack but rather an "economic attack." Qubic does not attempt to directly steal funds through double-spending attacks but instead uses a superior economic model to act like a giant magnet, attracting the originally dispersed Monero hash power to itself. As analyzed by Protos media, this is a "boiling frog" type of threat that erodes the foundation of Monero's decentralization.
At the Gates: The Monero Community's Counterattack
As Qubic's hash power share in the Monero network surged from 25% in mid-July to a critical point of 48-50% on August 12, the Monero community felt a tangible chill. SlowMist founder Yu Xian confirmed on social media: "Technically, Qubic has successfully executed a 51% attack on Monero." Although Qubic did not initiate a double-spend, the balance of network security had been completely disrupted.
A 51% attack is the Damocles sword hanging over PoW chains. Historically, Ethereum Classic (ETC) lost $1.1 million in assets due to a double-spend in 2019, while Bitcoin Gold (BTG) suffered losses of up to $18 million in an attack in 2018. The Block cited analysts estimating that a malicious actor could rent enough hash power to control the Monero network for "only $7,000 to $10,000 a day." Qubic's "experiment" undoubtedly brought this theoretical risk vividly to life.
Faced with this imminent threat, the community, which has "privacy" and "anti-censorship" as its totems, erupted with remarkable cohesion. A grassroots "hash power defense battle" quickly ignited. Community members spread the word on social platforms like Reddit, urging all loyal miners to withdraw their hash power from unknown mining pools and transfer it to reputable defensive pools like p2pool (a decentralized mining pool) or supportxmr.com.
The core of this counterattack is to undermine the foundation of Qubic's economic model. Although Sergei Chernykh, the developer of the mainstream mining software XMRig, denied allegations of launching a DDoS attack against Qubic, he clearly stated that the community is exploring "completely legal countermeasures." Behind this is a struggle for the soul of the network.
"Please Do Not Resist": Philosophy, Hubris, and the Future
In Qubic's official "Week 172 Review" blog post, they recounted the entire process of this "experiment" in an almost god-like tone, even documenting how they activated "selfish mining" mode to respond to the community's counterattack. The founder Ivancheglyo's response in the community further escalated the drama: "Please, do not resist."
This statement is filled with provocation but also reveals deeper philosophical reflections behind Qubic's actions. In Ivancheglyo and his supporters' view, if a PoW network can be easily suppressed in hash power by a superior economic system, then the problem lies in the design of that network itself; it is evolutionarily unfit. Qubic's "experiment" serves as a stress test to examine the "immunity" of PoW networks. They see themselves not as destroyers but as "whistleblowers" revealing the vulnerabilities that may exist in the economic incentives of the PoW mechanism.
This undoubtedly touches on the core issue of the crypto world: what is the essence of decentralization? Is it the absolute physical dispersion of hash power, or a more resilient consensus model that can withstand external economic erosion? Monero's RandomX algorithm aims to resist ASIC miners to achieve fairness in CPU mining, and its original intention is to maintain decentralization. However, the emergence of Qubic proves that even with extreme decentralization at the hardware level, hash power centralization based on economic incentives remains an unavoidable threat.
The impact of this event is profound. It serves as a wake-up call for all PoW projects, especially those with smaller market capitalizations and lower hash power security barriers. Simply relying on technically sophisticated designs may not be enough to counter the "dimensionality reduction attack" from more efficient external economies. Future public chain competition may not only be a contest of technology and ecology but also a game of economic models and incentive mechanisms.
Ultimately, under the Monero community's tenacious resistance and immense public pressure, Qubic's hash power share has receded somewhat. This war without gunpowder has temporarily come to a close. However, the questions raised by Qubic remain unresolved. It acts like a mirror, reflecting both the glory and concerns deep within the PoW world. This controversial "experiment" initiated by a genius developer may not be the last. When the next, more powerful "Qubic" appears, who can guarantee that they won't become the next "Monero"? This game of hash power, sovereignty, and survival has only just begun.
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