Qubic versus Monero: threat or theatre?

Why a useful-work blockchain focused on decentralised AI would seize other networks

On 11 August 2025 the Qubic team claimed it had carried out a 51% attack on the Monero blockchain, and later named Dogecoin as its next target. To the crypto community such claims sound alarming, since incidents of this sort call a network’s security and the resilience of its economy into question. In practice, the privacy coin’s blockchain suffered no tangible effects, and many viewed the project’s actions as an attempt at manipulation and a grab for attention.

ForkLog set out to understand why Qubic, which presents itself as a platform for building a free and peaceful AI, resorts to such aggressive methods—and what the attempted attack means for the industry.

A libertarian backbone

In 2012, on the Bitcointalk forum, a user with the handle Come-from-Beyond wrote about work on a digital asset free of bitcoin’s flaws—Qubic (Quorum-Based Coin, QBC). His supposedly better analogue of the first cryptocurrency was to differ in the following ways:

• no fees for transfers;
• untraceable transactions;
• miners’ “proof-of-work” based on internet bandwidth by IP address, without costly hardware;
• issuance speed set by a quorum of miners rather than developers;
• a visual design of digital assets closer to fiat;
• no need to run a resource-hungry full node; each miner is allowed to process a portion of the network;
• a significant increase in transaction speed; 
• a greener blockchain with lower electricity costs.

The forum greeted the idea with scepticism. The developer was peppered with questions about technical details, especially the quorum-based consensus and protection against a 51% attack. Some participants deemed the project unworkable and, with irony, advised Sergey Ivancheglo to start with the basics of cryptography and blockchain architecture.

Over time the discussion became more substantive: users showed interest in Qubic and began asking about the project’s technical underpinnings. One of Ivancheglo’s first detailed clarifications explained protection against a Sybil attack.

In the same days, Come-from-Beyond published a document on Qubic. It is unavailable at the time of writing, but its description conveys the gist. It emphasised the network’s “freedom-centric” nature, which, the author said, should attract libertarians. 

Conceptual additions to the network’s architecture followed. One discussion concerned the role of people in the community—those without specialist knowledge should still be able to influence the project’s development.

Qubic today

Before launching Qubic, Ivancheglo worked on NXT—one of the first cryptocurrencies with Proof-of-Stake consensus. He later joined IOTA, whose team in 2018 presented IOTA Qubic as a priority track. A year later Ivancheglo left the project and focused on independently developing a decentralised-AI concept—AIGarth based on Qubic.

In April 2022 Qubic’s mainnet went live with the eponymous token. AIGarth was implemented on the new network built on Proof-of-Useful-Work (PoUW). 

According to internal documents, the startup provides computing resources for outsourced tasks, but use of the technology in the military sphere is excluded by the company’s memorandum.

The architecture allows computation in validators’ RAM. Qubic uses the Quorum-Based Computation (QBC) protocol, supported by 676 compute nodes—more than two-thirds must agree to make decisions. The set of nodes is refreshed each epoch based on a ranking. 

This approach has produced record speed—up to 15.5m TPS.

The freedom to dominate

Within its PoUW concept Qubic aimed to implement the first stage of “outsourced computation” and test it in real conditions. The attempt to control Monero’s blockchain began as a proof of concept.

I, like the #Monero community, am trying to find a countermeasure to #Qubic‘s 51% domination. This is very important to the #cryptocurrency industry because one day we all may face a non-benevolent attack. To spread awareness, first among $XMR holders and then among all the…

— Come-from-Beyond (@c___f___b) July 28, 2025

On 11 August 2025, at the initial stage of the attack, Qubic split its resources between mining XMR and training AIGarth. At one point the approach was nearly three times more profitable than straight coin mining and drew a stream of computing power.

Initially the Qubic community sold the mined XMR and used the proceeds to buy QUBIC for burning, creating a deflationary effect. Later, after a vote, the reward mechanism was changed: half of the funds continued to be burned, while the other half was distributed to miners as an extra bonus. Activating the fee switch served as a powerful economic incentive that drew participants from other Monero pools, helping to “capture” the network.

The events drew a storm of criticism from experts, influencers—and especially the Monero community. Many saw Qubic’s actions as a PR stunt rather than a genuine threat, pointing to discrepancies between the claims and the data. Most observers concluded that the practical effect was minimal, but the campaign grabbed the industry’s attention.

On 13 August Hyperfusion co-founder and CIO Alex Petrov noted the campaign’s effects in a comment to ForkLog:

“Qubic noticeably increased its prominence and token price, while the Monero network suffered no material losses.”

According to him, the main goal was to draw attention to both projects. Qubic launched a dual-mining pool where users could mine Monero (XMR) and the native QUBIC token simultaneously. That made it possible to ramp up hashrate quickly and promote the pool thanks to the extra yield from XMR.

Since 25 July, the day the incident was announced, QUBIC has risen by 75% to $0.0000034. At the time of writing the asset trades at $0.0000026. 

The price of XMR slipped a modest 25% between 25 July and 15 August. At the time of writing the privacy coin has recovered and trades at $265.

According to Google Trends, Qubic’s actions sent online interest in Monero to a five-year high.

Searches for PoW also hit a three-year high.

During the campaign the Monero network continued to operate normally and process transactions without delays. As reported on Qubic’s blog, the chief lesson—besides the demonstration of outsourced mining power—was the economic motivation miners can have to attack networks. 

“Now that the test takeover is complete, the core functionality of the Monero network remains unchanged. Its privacy, speed and usability have not been compromised. However, the ultimate goal is for the security of the Monero protocol to be provided by Qubic miners. In that case, rewards will flow through Qubic pools, which will bring higher profits and create a new incentive system for Monero miners,” the blog says.

The project itself was subjected to a DDoS attack that lasted more than a week. According to Ivancheglo, the team handled it successfully.

And again the #Qubic pool has demonstrated that DDoS attacks isn’t an efficient countermeasure. pic.twitter.com/SLouqgK6tL

— Come-from-Beyond (@c___f___b) August 16, 2025

On 17 August the Qubic community chose Dogecoin as the next “educational attack” target for mining pools. According to Ivancheglo, it is “just mining”. He said preparation would take about a month; in the meantime the Qubic pool will “continue profitable XMR mining”.

The #Qubic community has chosen #Dogecoin. pic.twitter.com/EnevIZUAw5

— Come-from-Beyond (@c___f___b) August 17, 2025

After the incident, the privacy-focused cryptocurrency’s community proposed new ways to defend against a 51% attack. Among them:

• localising hardware; 
• switching to merged mining to produce XMR alongside other cryptocurrencies; 
• implementing Dash’s ChainLocks.

The fallout will probably be felt across crypto: it could prod PoW networks to harden their defences—or to reorganise. Yet Qubic’s tactics leave a mixed impression: it is one thing to act as “white hats” at developers’ request, quite another to attack uninvited. That looks especially contradictory alongside the non-aggression principle—a cornerstone of libertarianism that Ivancheglo invoked when presenting Qubic back in 2012.