Monero Fights Back: Qubic’s 51% Hash Rate Takeover Crashes & Burns

Privacy coin defenders just schooled Wall Street-style power grabs—again.

When Qubic tried to strong-arm Monero with a majority hash rate play, the community mobilized faster than a DeFi exploit. Miners shifted allegiance, nodes hardened defenses, and the would-be attacker got left holding empty hash bags.

Meanwhile in TradFi land, hedge funds still think 'hostile takeover' means buying someone's building at 30% over appraisal. Crypto eats their lunch—with extra volatility sauce.

The 51% takeover plan

Qubic’sacross X and Reddit as a pay‑to‑switch mining campaign. By offering richer payouts than ordinary pools, Qubic aims to attract enough Monero miners to its pool to surpass 51% of the network hash, a threshold that would enable it to orphan rivals’ blocks, delay confirmations, and potentially censor transactions. 

IvanchegloAug. 2 to Aug. 31 as a window of elevated risk and urged exchanges to raise Monero deposit confirmations, framing the MOVE as a precaution during their “test.”

On Reddit, Monero miners and users viewed the campaign as a live 51% attack attempt, driven by incentives rather than a code exploit. Posts in forums dedicated to the Monero community on Reddit tracked Qubic’s pool share and warned that concentration could enable orphaned blocks, delayed confirmations, or transaction censorship. 

A“Qubic/Sergey Ivancheglo 51% attack plans” complained of “silence from most devs,” while another, “The timeline for the 51% attack is August,” claimed the poolof the last 100 blocks and urged a community response.

Community reaction

Analyst Dan Dadybayoon an X thread how Monero was under attack through an incentive campaign, arguing that intent is secondary to the risk of centralization when a single pool can outbid the rest of the network for hashpower. 

His follow‑ups described why Monero’s CPU‑friendly RandomX and highly mobile miners make such an attack plausible if incentives are aligned. 

The Monero subreddit’s tone oscillated between alarm and organization.

Members of the Monero community highlighted on X and Reddit Qubic’s rise into the top tier of pools through richer payouts and warned that waiting for 40% and 50% dominance WOULD be too late.

The reaction led to the community rallying behind the mining pool “supportxmr.com” to battle Qubic in an attempt to lead Monero’s mining capacity. As of press time, the 4,970 miners composing the poolof the network hash rate, having mined 36 out of the last 100 blocks.

Nevertheless, a Qubic spokesperson told CryptoSlate that the 51% takeover will still be attempted, adding:

Furthermore, Qubic highlighted a June proposal in which the community must decide whether other blocks should be orphaned in the event of a 51% attack. Among what the proposal portrays as benefits are reduced fees for Monero users, boosted revenue for miners, integration with Qubic miners, and a “practical test of a 51% attack and possibility to analyze its impact on XMR price.”

As of press time, there is no commentary in the proposal.

Benevolent attack

Ivanchegloas “fear‑mongering,” even as his project urged exchanges to increase Monero confirmation thresholds, escalating concern across Reddit and crypto Twitter. 

He framed the effort as industry research. He said he was “trying to find a countermeasure to Qubic’s 51% domination,” a claim that did little to calm Monero users who worried the “demo” could do real damage. 

In addition, Ivancheglo said:

The uneven tone has led to rampant speculation that Qubic may want to normalize a majority‑hash posture while portraying it as benevolent.

The episode highlights that proof-of-work networks can be pressured not only by raw hashrate rentals but also by token-driven incentive loops that outpay organic mining.