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Qubic’s Next Target: DOGE
Qubic Successfully Takes Control of Monero’s Network Hash Rate
How Did Qubic Achieve a 51% Attack?
Forced Kraken to Suspend XMR Deposits
Sergey Ivancheglo, the founder of the Qubic network, initiated a vote within the community to determine which ASIC-supported Proof of Work (PoW) blockchain should be targeted for the next 51% attack. The options considered included Dogecoin, Kaspa (KAS), and Zcash (ZEC). In a tweet early this morning, Ivancheglo announced the results: “The Qubic community has chosen Dogecoin.” According to the community vote, Dogecoin received over 300 votes, exceeding the total votes for all other candidates combined.
Last Monday, the Qubic team announced that they had successfully seized control of the majority of Monero’s network hash rate. After a month-long competition with other Monero miners, their mining pool successfully reorganized six blocks and gained majority control over the network. According to MiningPoolStats data, the current hash rate of the Qubic mining pool is approximately 2.32 GH/s. The Qubic team emphasized in a statement on Tuesday:
“The core functionalities of the Monero network remain intact. Its privacy, speed, and usability have not been affected. However, the ultimate goal is for Qubic miners to ensure the security of the Monero protocol. This way, rewards will be distributed through the Qubic mining pool, leading to greater profitability and creating a new, more incentivized environment for Monero miners.”
The Qubic attack was not merely a brute force hash rate accumulation, but rather completed in three steps:
First, it designed an “economic trap.” Qubic utilized its hash rate to mine Monero and used the profits to buy back Qubic tokens, part of which were destroyed while the other part was directly distributed to validators. This design allowed miners to earn more than simply mining Monero, attracting a large number of miners to shift their hash rate to the Qubic mining pool. As more and more hash rate concentrated on Qubic, the overall security of the Monero network began to weaken.
Next, Qubic engaged in a hash rate battle. It had a month-long tug-of-war with existing Monero mining pools, during which it even endured over a week of continuous DDoS attacks. However, due to Qubic’s decentralized infrastructure, its core network continued to operate, demonstrating resilience.
Finally, on August 11, Qubic launched a decisive strike. It employed a Selfish Mining strategy: secretly accumulating blocks and not broadcasting them immediately, waiting for the optimal moment to release them, leading to orphaned blocks on the Monero network. This allowed the Qubic mining pool to gain disproportionate block rewards and consensus control with just slightly over 51% hash rate. Data shows that among a sample of 122 blocks, the Qubic mining pool successfully mined 63 blocks, more than half, confirming the success of the attack.
This attack has shocked the cryptocurrency community and even prompted precautionary measures from exchanges. Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken has temporarily suspended Monero (XMR) deposits, citing “the majority hash rate being held by a single mining pool poses a potential risk to the network’s integrity.”
However, Kraken stated that XMR withdrawals and trading functionalities remain unaffected; only deposits are suspended. The exchange added that it will reopen Monero deposit services once the network is confirmed to be “secure.”
