A quick‑shifting battle over mining energy consumed Monero’s weekend after Sergey Ivancheglo used X to advertise an “financial” marketing campaign to dominate the community’s hashrate, which was met by group resistance.
The battle escalated after Ivancheglo, the determine behind Qubic and higher often known as Come‑from‑Past (CFB), confirmed the takeover intentions with an incentive-driven 51% assault.
As a response, the group gathered within the “supportxmr.com” pool to carry nearly all of Monero’s mining capability.
The 51% takeover plan
Qubic’s plan surfaced throughout X and Reddit as a pay‑to‑change mining marketing campaign. By providing richer payouts than peculiar swimming pools, Qubic goals to draw sufficient Monero miners to its pool to surpass 51% of the community hash, a threshold that will allow it to orphan rivals’ blocks, delay confirmations, and doubtlessly censor transactions.
Ivancheglo publicly flagged Aug. 2 to Aug. 31 as a window of elevated danger and urged exchanges to boost Monero deposit confirmations, framing the transfer as a precaution throughout their “take a look at.”
On Reddit, Monero miners and customers considered the marketing campaign as a dwell 51% assault try, pushed by incentives somewhat than a code exploit. Posts in boards devoted to the Monero group on Reddit tracked Qubic’s pool share and warned that focus might allow orphaned blocks, delayed confirmations, or transaction censorship.
A thread titled “Qubic/Sergey Ivancheglo 51% assault plans” complained of “silence from most devs,” whereas one other, “The timeline for the 51% assault is August,” claimed the pool had mined 31 of the final 100 blocks and urged a group response.
Neighborhood response
Analyst Dan Dadybayo defined on an X thread how Monero was beneath assault via an incentive marketing campaign, arguing that intent is secondary to the danger of centralization when a single pool can outbid the remainder of the community for hashpower.
His comply with‑ups described why Monero’s CPU‑pleasant RandomX and extremely cellular miners make such an assault believable if incentives are aligned.
The Monero subreddit’s tone oscillated between alarm and group.
Members of the Monero group highlighted on X and Reddit Qubic’s rise into the highest tier of swimming pools via richer payouts and warned that ready for 40% and 50% dominance could be too late.
The response led to the group rallying behind the mining pool “supportxmr.com” to battle Qubic in an try to steer Monero’s mining capability. As of press time, the 4,970 miners composing the pool accounted for 28.7% of the community hash price, having mined 36 out of the final 100 blocks.
However, a Qubic spokesperson instructed CryptoSlate that the 51% takeover will nonetheless be tried, including:
“The purpose is to not hurt, similar to tx reversals, however to make each miner on the Monero community be part of the QUBIC mining pool.”
Moreover, Qubic highlighted a June proposal during which the group should determine whether or not different blocks ought to be orphaned within the occasion of a 51% assault. Amongst what the proposal portrays as advantages are lowered charges for Monero customers, boosted income for miners, integration with Qubic miners, and a “sensible take a look at of a 51% assault and risk to investigate its affect on XMR worth.”
As of press time, there isn’t any commentary within the proposal.
Benevolent assault
Ivancheglo dismissed alarm as “worry‑mongering,” at the same time as his challenge urged exchanges to extend Monero affirmation thresholds, escalating concern throughout Reddit and crypto Twitter.
He framed the trouble as trade analysis. He mentioned he was “looking for a countermeasure to Qubic’s 51% domination,” a declare that did little to calm Monero customers who fearful the “demo” might do actual harm.
As well as, Ivancheglo mentioned:
“This is essential to the #cryptocurrency trade as a result of at some point all of us might face a non-benevolent assault.”
The uneven tone has led to rampant hypothesis that Qubic might wish to normalize a majority‑hash posture whereas portraying it as benevolent.
The episode highlights that proof-of-work networks could be pressured not solely by uncooked hashrate leases but additionally by token-driven incentive loops that outpay natural mining.
