Privacy-focused Monero is facing what appears to be an attempted network takeover by former top mining pool Qubic, prompting community backlash and concerns over hashrate centralization.
As of Monday, Qubic had fallen from the top spot on the Monero (XMR) mining pool rankings to seventh, according to MiningPoolStats data. After the community noticed the pool looked to be openly performing a network takeover, the pool’s hashrate plummeted until it fell into its current position as the seventh-largest XMR mining pool.
In a June 30 blog post, Qubic revealed that it had begun incentivizing Monero CPU mining via its own network. The mined XMR would then be used to fund buybacks and token burns for the Qubic ecosystem. “QUBIC miners now perform real-world tasks (Monero mining) that generate real market value, which in turn strengthens the QUBIC economy,” the post stated.
Sergey Ivancheglo, founder of crypto projects Qubic, NXT and Iota, openly admitted that his Qubic network was staging a takeover of the Monero network. In a recent X post, he explained that after getting control of most of the network’s hashrate, Qubic would reject the blocks mined by other pools.
This would lead to XMR mining becoming only profitable, or even effective, on the Qubic pool. Still, given the pool’s falling hashrate, the danger appears to be falling.
Related: Monero likely pumped 50% due to suspected $330M Bitcoin theft: ZachXBT
The covert operation phase
In a Monday X post, Ivancheglo said that from next Wednesday, the Qubic mining pool will stop reporting its hashrate — a measure previously expected to be implemented after the pool took control of most of the hashrate. This would make it much harder to determine how much of Monero’s hashrate is controlled by Qubic and assess the danger it posed to the network.
In his post, Ivancheglo claimed that he is trying to find a countermeasure to the very attack that he is orchestrating. He explained that it is important to the cryptocurrency industry “because one day we all may face a non-benevolent attack.”
Related: Japanese authorities trace Monero, arrest 18 in $670K laundering case
Monero community did not appreciate the move
Ivancheglo said in a separate X post that comments discussing his presumed location in Belarus circulated on the Monero subreddit. “I hope the head bounty won’t be collected in $XMR to avoid creating incentive to drop its price to 0,” he said. One…
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