Ah, Monero! The valiant knight of the cryptocurrency realm, clad in the shimmering armor of privacy, has managed to dodge the treacherous arrows of the Qubic pool for a glorious 36 hours! 🎉 What a feat! Selfish mining, that dastardly trickery, is akin to a villain in a melodrama, where a miner, wielding a hefty share of the network’s hashrate, plays the role of the rogue, delaying the broadcast of their mined blocks. This nefarious act leads to a chaotic reorganization of the blockchain, leaving other miners in the dust, their hard-earned rewards snatched away like candy from a child. 🍬
On the fateful day of August 12, the Qubic Pool unleashed its cunning plan, orchestrating a six-block chain reorg that rewrote Monero’s history from block height 3,475,995 to 3,476,000. Imagine the chaos! Exchanges and services, in a panic akin to a cat in a room full of rocking chairs, halted Monero deposits and withdrawals, mistakenly branding it a 51% attack during the mining wars. Oh, the irony! 😹
As I pen these words, at block height 3,477,070, Monero stands tall, boasting zero orphaned blocks in the last 720 blocks (24 hours). “Orphan,” a term that sounds like a sad tale from a Dickens novel, refers to blocks that were cruelly replaced by a selfish miner during a chain reorg. Just a day prior, during Qubic’s attack, 60 orphan blocks were registered, a veritable orphanage of lost blocks! 🏚️
With 1,070 blocks confirmed post-reorg and no further attacks in sight, Monero edges closer to a 36-hour safe haven. What a relief! Or is it? 🤔
Monero Blockchain and Orphan Blocks Visualization | Source: moneroconsensus.info
Did Qubic Launch a 51% Attack on Monero? The Plot Thickens!
Most headlines screamed about the six-block reorg from August 12, labeling it a 51% attack against Monero. But hold your horses! This is a technical blunder of epic proportions! A true 51% attack would require the villain to control 51% or more of the network’s hashrate-something that, as of now, remains unproven. 🕵️♂️
Luke Parker, a core developer and the voice of reason, clarified in his musings on X that the August 12 debacle could have been executed with less than 51% of the hashrate, relying on a sprinkle of luck. But let’s not kid ourselves; a hefty amount of hashrate was still necessary for this caper. 🎩
A 6 re-org does not mean a ‘51% attack’ was successful. In that case, we’d see unbounded-depth re-orgs/no blocks mined by any other mining pool (assuming the adversary censors other mining pools, as this one does).
It does mean an adversary with a high amount of hash got lucky.
– Luke Parker (@kayabaNerve) August 12, 2025
A report from Qubic, humorously dubbed the “Q Marathon,” revealed that the pool managed to mine 251 out of 699 blocks during the 24-hour attack. This translates to a hashrate of approximately 35.91%, just a smidge above one-third of the network, and far from the mythical 51%. 🏃♂️💨
~36% fyi
In other words, they are now profitably selfish mining.
Not a 51% attack. They are doing great at marketing though.
– ᴜɴᴛʀᴀᴄᴇᴀʙʟᴇ (@DontTraceMeBruh) August 12, 2025
Self-reported hashrate? A dubious source, my friends! It can be manipulated like a puppet on strings. Measuring the true hashrate is akin to finding a needle in a haystack, as proof-of-work is a probabilistic science, requiring vast samples of mined blocks for any semblance of conclusive data. But by the time the larger sample arrives, the hashrate could have danced away, influenced by a myriad of factors. 💃
Moreover, as Luke Parker elucidated, a 51% attack would allow the villain to repeat the selfish mining strategy ad infinitum, wreaking havoc, enabling double spends, and censoring transactions with the ease of a magician pulling rabbits from hats. 🎩🐇
Yet, the situation remains precarious for the Monero network, its services, users, and the honest miners. With over 33% of the hashrate, a selfish mining strategy can be executed profitably, and further deep chain reorganizations may loom on the horizon. Experts advise exchanges, services, and users to wait for at least 10 block confirmations before declaring a transaction safe, but who knows what the future holds? 🤷♂️
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2025-08-14 01:09