Monero was not 51% attacked. This article debunks CoinDesk’s report, revealing how Qubic’s hashrate claims were faked to mislead the crypto community.
Dear Coindesk,
We are writing you to express serious concerns about the article “Monero’s 51% Attack Problem: Inside Qubic’s Controversial Network Takeover,” published on August 12, 2025.
While the article brings an important topic to light, it appears to have uncritically published claims from Qubic, leading to the misleading conclusion that a successful 51% attack on the Monero network is underway.
This article, in its current form, is of low journalistic quality as it presents unverified claims as fact. By providing a platform for Qubic’s unproven assertions, it risks damaging the reputation of a legitimate project like Monero and causes significant concern within the broader cryptocurrency community. The alleged “attack” by Qubic is not a real 51% attack but rather a marketing stunt based on falsified numbers.
We have evidence to suggest that Qubic’s claims are misleading and their hashrate numbers are not independently verifiable. This action damages legitimate miners and network participants for the personal gain of a single entity. It is unacceptable for a reputable publication like CoinDesk to provide a stage for such bad economic actors.
Evidence of Falsification
1) Lack of Transparency on Public Hashrate
Qubic’s official blog posts and announcements from their founder, Sergey Ivancheglo (aka “Come-from-Beyond”), explicitly state that they stopped reporting their Monero mining pool hashrate on public sites like miningpoolstats.stream. This makes it impossible for third parties to verify their claims. Qubic’s reliance on its own internal dashboards, which are easily manipulated, is a significant red flag.
Source: Qubic’s blog post, “Epoch 172 Recap – The Monero Experiment” from August 7, 2025, and their August 12, 2025, press release titled “Qubic Performs 51% Monero Network Takeover Demonstration” openly discuss this strategy. A report by The Block also confirms that critics have “highlighted a lack of transparency around pool reporting, making it hard to verify the data.”
2) Hashrate-to-Blocks Mined Discrepancy
The number of blocks Qubic has actually mined is not consistent with the hashrate they claim to control. The Monero network has an average block time, and a pool’s hashrate directly correlates to the number of blocks it is expected to find. The claimed chain reorganizations were not the result of a sustained 51% attack but rather a “lucky” short-term series of block finds.
Source: Luke Parker, a developer from SeraiDEX, stated on X/Twitter that a six-block reorganization “does not mean a ‘51% attack’ was successful,” but rather that “an adversary with a high amount of hash got lucky.” (see also coincentral.com) Other community analyses on forums and in reports (including from entities like BitMEX Research) have echoed this, demonstrating that Qubic’s claimed hashrate is a statistically unlikely explanation for their actual block discovery rate.
3) Unrealistic Profitability
Qubic’s claim that its Monero mining was “nearly three times more lucrative than traditional Monero mining” is economically infeasible and serves to artificially inflate miner participation. It’s a classic marketing tactic to draw in miners with promises of outsized rewards that are not sustainable and rely on the burning of their own QUBIC tokens, which have a limited supply and are subject to their own price volatility.
4) The “Proof” Is a Press Release
Qubic’s claims of success are not from independent security researchers or blockchain data firms, but from their own self-published blog posts and press releases. For example, their August 12, 2025, press release titled “Qubic Performs 51% Monero Network Takeover Demonstration” is not a neutral report but a promotional piece designed to validate their “Useful Proof of Work” model.
The Monero community has robustly refuted these claims, pointing out that the network has been functioning as intended. While there was a minor chain reorganization, such events are not uncommon and do not prove a successful, malicious attack. The broader community is largely unfazed, as there has been no evidence of double-spends or transaction censorship, which would be the hallmarks of a genuine and sustained 51% attack.
You can find additional information and verified debate from the monero community at these sources.
- https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/1mod130/psa_qubic_is_lying_they_dont_have_50_hash_rate/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/1mq71t5/another_api_fake_report/
- https://x.com/BitMEXResearch/status/1955254320305217726
We demand that you publish a follow-up article or a clarification that presents the proper facts and addresses the inaccuracies in the original piece. We are happy to provide detailed evidence and sources to support our claims, including independent hashrate data and technical analyses from the Monero community.
Sincerely,
The board of the RIAT Institute (Monero Community Members)