After Monero suffered a 51% attack, did the Qubic community shift the pressure to Dogecoin?

Author: CoinW Research Institute

Recently, the AI public chain Qubic, driven by the “Useful Proof of Work (uPoW)” mechanism, reorganized Monero blocks in a short period, resulting in 60 blocks being isolated. Although there is still controversy over whether this attack constitutes a strict 51% attack, its impact on the market has surpassed the technical level. The uncertainty of network integrity has forced exchanges to implement risk control measures, putting pressure on the price of Monero. This attack event reveals that the security budget under the PoW mechanism may be penetrated under external incentives, thus exposing the structural fragility of hash power concentration and security boundaries.

What is even more noteworthy is that the Qubic community’s subsequent vote has listed Dogecoin, with a market value exceeding $35 billion, as a potential attack target. This trend has not only deepened market concerns but also reignited discussions outside regarding the relationship between incentivized hash power distribution and network integrity. The mobility of hash power and the boundaries of security budgets are being re-examined, and in this context, the CoinW Research Institute will conduct a deeper analysis of this event.

1. Qubic’s “51% attack”, is it a marketing narrative or a technical threat?

1.1. How the uPoW mechanism breaks through the traditional security budget

In a standard PoW architecture, the cornerstone of hash power stability is the on-chain security budget, which is the incentive closed loop formed by block rewards and transaction fees. Taking Monero as an example, the network has currently entered the tail emission phase, with a fixed block reward of 0.6 XMR per block, an average block time of about two minutes, and approximately 720 blocks generated daily across the network. The total security budget (approximately equal to miner block subsidies * XMR market price) is about $110,367 per day, which is also the economic lower limit that attackers must bear to maintain control over the majority of hash power.

Qubic introduces useful Proof of Work (uPoW) that breaks through this traditional limitation. Unlike a model that solely relies on block rewards, Qubic provides miners with QUBIC block rewards while also directing computing power towards Monero mining, converting this portion of rewards into USDT for repurchasing and destroying QUBIC on the open market. In this case, miners not only directly receive QUBIC block subsidies but also gain indirect benefits from the deflationary effect brought about by repurchase and destruction, resulting in a comprehensive return higher than simply mining XMR. This has allowed Qubic to quickly mobilize a large amount of computing power in a short period and has led to the unusual phenomenon of six block reorganizations and nearly 60 orphan blocks. In fact, as early as June this year, Qubic began mining Monero and Tari, converting all rewards into USDT for repurchasing QUBIC tokens and then destroying them. According to Qubic’s official disclosure, this mining mechanism is over 50% more profitable than solely mining XMR and Tari.

Source: qubic.org

1.2. The credibility of Qubic 51% attack is in doubt.

Although Qubic claims to have achieved a “51% attack” on Monero, this statement has been questioned by the community. According to publicly available data from the research organization RIAT, its peak hash rate was only about 2.6 GH/s, while Monero’s total network hash rate during the same period was around 6.25 GH/s. In other words, Qubic’s hash rate accounted for less than 42%, which is significantly different from a true 51% attack. Further data supports this assessment; CoinWarz data shows that on the day of the incident, Monero’s total network hash rate peaked at 6.77 GH/s, while MiningPoolStats reported approximately 5.21 GH/s on the same day. This further indicates that Qubic’s peak hash rate was a momentary fluctuation rather than steady control. According to MiningPoolStats, Qubic’s current mining pool hash rate is about 2.16 GH/s, with a hash rate share of 35.3%. The data discrepancies indicate instability in its control capabilities and a lack of sustained recognition.

Source: miningpoolstats

Despite the doubts surrounding the majority control, the network security of Monero has not been practically affected. However, the power fluctuations of Qubic have impacted the market in the short term. Kraken suspended XMR deposits due to network integrity risks and raised the confirmation threshold to 720 blocks upon resumption, retaining the right to suspend again. This indicates that even if it is not a true 51% attack, as long as there is a possibility of computational manipulation, the transaction security chain will be pressured in advance, challenging liquidity and confidence simultaneously.

2. Dogecoin becomes the next potential attack target

2.1 Dogecoin becomes the next potential target for attacks

After Monero, Qubic has now targeted Dogecoin as the next potential target for attack. Recently, the Qubic community initiated a new vote to decide the next possible target for a 51% attack. The final result showed that Dogecoin received over 300 votes, significantly higher than candidates like Kaspa and Zcash. This vote has attracted market attention, indicating that Qubic’s attack focus has shifted from the privacy coin Monero to a mainstream meme coin with a higher market cap and a broader user base.

The reason Qubic has attracted market attention is that it has demonstrated a new economic incentive model in the Monero attack. This is not a traditional hacking behavior, but rather a way to “rent” computational power through economic incentives, thereby reshaping the security assumptions of PoW. Currently, this model has the potential to be projected onto Dogecoin, which has amplified market unease. Interestingly, after voting, the Qubic community stated that the action towards Dogecoin was mining rather than an “attack.” From the current statements of Qubic officials, the community generally interprets this incident as a marketing maneuver rather than a purely technical attack.

Source: @_Qubic_

2.2. Can Qubic attack Dogecoin be realized?

It is worth noting that Qubic adopts a method of mining first and then “attacking” for Monero as well. Therefore, the community speculates that Qubic may also “attack” Dogecoin in the future. Can it be realized? To understand the risks, we need to first examine the hashrate scale of Dogecoin. According to CoinWarz data, the current total hashrate of Dogecoin is about 2.69 PH/s, with a historical peak of 7.68 PH/s, which shows the scale of miners’ investment in hardware and electricity. According to the network mechanism, Dogecoin produces a block approximately every minute, with a fixed reward of 10,000 DOGE per block, resulting in a daily new supply of about 14.4 million DOGE; at the current price of about 0.21 USD, Dogecoin’s daily security budget is approximately 3 million USD. In contrast, Monero adds only 432 XMR daily during its tail emission phase, with a corresponding security budget of about 110,000 USD, which is far lower than that of Dogecoin. This gap indicates that under the same conditions, if Qubic attempts a 51% attack on Dogecoin, the financial and technical thresholds for attacking Dogecoin would be much higher than those for Monero.

Source: coinwarz

The strategy of Qubic is not to directly invest large amounts of capital, but to attract temporary migration of computing power through a subsidy model. If enough miners are incentivized by QUBIC to leave other chains and turn to Dogecoin in the short term, it could still impact block stability. Even if a true “double spend” cannot be achieved, it may lead to increased block delays and a higher rate of orphan blocks, thereby disrupting the normal operation of the network. It can also be understood that Qubic’s attack does not necessarily have to be “successful”; creating chaos is enough to undermine market confidence.

3. From the Qubic event perspective, a new game of PoW under AI computing power

3.1. The Liquidity and Loyalty Dilemma of Miners

Traditional PoW consensus relies on computational power, which is the logic of security: the higher the computational power, the greater the cost of attacking the network, forming a solid moat. However, the Qubic incident exposed a new reality: computational power is not long-term locked onto a single chain, but rather a resource that can be quickly transferred, rented, or even speculated upon. When computational power has high liquidity, its properties resemble liquid funds in capital markets, which can flow into areas with higher returns at any time.

This liquidity of computing power directly changes the relationship between miners and the network. In the past, miners’ incentives mainly came from block rewards and transaction fees, forming a long-term bond with the chain. However, under the Qubic model, the source of miners’ income has been redefined. This gradually transforms miners into computing power arbitrageurs, rather than long-term guardians of a specific chain.

The deeper impact is that the security of PoW networks will no longer depend on the scale of computing power itself, but rather on the stability of that computing power. Once computing power can be bought at any time by higher bidders, the cost of attacking the network will no longer be a static absolute number, but will be highly correlated with fluctuations in the external market. As a result, PoW will no longer be a solid security cornerstone, but will turn into a temporary defense subject to the dynamics of the external market, with security boundaries potentially being breached at any time.

3.2. New Game of PoW in the Era of AI Computing Power

In the context of the continuous increase in AI computing power demand, the security of PoW networks is being redefined. In the traditional model, computing power circulates only within the chain, and the security budget relies entirely on block rewards and transaction fees. However, under the Qubic model, it has been proven that computing power can also be directed outside the chain. For miners, computing power will naturally flow to the market that offers the highest returns. This means that the security budget of PoW is no longer a static cost within the chain, but is linked to the global computing power market, and may even experience a security flash crash when AI computing power prices soar.

In this environment, PoW is likely just a short-term transition solution for AI public chains. Relying solely on the PoW model to maintain security will be difficult in the long-term context of mining power outflow. In the future, more similar projects may shift towards PoS or hybrid consensus mechanisms. Whether the migration of consensus mechanisms can be completed smoothly will become an important factor in judging the long-term competitiveness of AI+PoW public chains.

At the same time, external security binding is becoming a more feasible path for the integration of PoW and AI public blockchains. For example, through a secure leasing market, a re-staking mechanism similar to EigenLayer can outsource Ethereum’s staked capital for use by AI public blockchains, providing them with a more stable and attack-resistant security budget. In this approach, it no longer relies on its own computational power scale but hedges the liquidity risk of computational power by binding the long-term security of a mature network, which may become an important direction for AI public blockchains to break through the limitations of PoW.