Author: Haotian

Monero (XMR), a leading privacy coin with a market cap of 6 billion, was surprisingly attacked by a small project called Qubic, which has a market cap of only 300 million, through a 51% hash power attack? WTF, it's not because of how advanced the technology is, but because this situation is just absurd. Let me explain.

Who is Qubic?

Before diving into this magical story, we need to talk about what Qubic is.

The founder of Qubic is Sergey Ivancheglo, known in the industry as Come-from-Beyond. He is a tech fanatic—he created the first PoS blockchain, NXT, and also developed the first DAG architecture, IOTA. Qubic's mainnet launched in 2022, claiming to achieve three things: to build an ultra-fast chain capable of 15.5 million transactions per second (20,000 times faster than Visa), to turn mining hash power into AI training power, and ultimately to achieve AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) by 2027 (something even OpenAI wouldn't dare to claim). Sounds magical and absurd, right? Why such grand ambitions?

It's well-known that traditional PoW mining is criticized for wasting electricity, as most mining mechanisms involve miners using power-consuming hash rates to solve mathematical problems to claim reward blocks, essentially wasting hash power for rewards.

Qubic's new consensus is useful proof of work (UPow), allowing miners to mine on a PoW chain while simultaneously training their AI system, AIGarth, under the coordination of Qubic, meaning one unit of hash power can earn two forms of income.

This is why they could easily entice Monero miners, as the returns for miners reached up to three times that of directly mining XMR. Just think about it, miners can have their cake and eat it too; in the face of "interests," what loyalty can there be?

Now, having read this, the underlying logic of Monero being attacked by vampires has been explained without any technical complexity.

Why Monero and not Bitcoin?

The answer lies in the differences in mining methods.

Bitcoin uses ASIC miners, which are custom machines specifically designed to mine BTC; they can only solve SHA-256 mathematical problems and cannot mine other coins that are not similar to BTC's algorithm. However, the problem is that the competition for Bitcoin mining hash power is intense, and miners are stretched thin (operating 24/7). Moreover, it's impossible to train AI with ASICs.

Monero, on the other hand, uses the RandomX algorithm, which allows mining with general-purpose CPUs. This means that its miners can mine today, train AI tomorrow, and render videos the day after, effectively multitasking.

Qubic's cleverness lies in targeting CPU miners, allowing them to "use one machine for two purposes," which led to this 51% hash power attack or control event. In contrast, Bitcoin's moat is quite stable; miners are stuck with limited ASIC miners focused solely on mining, unable to diversify.

Hash Power as Mercenaries

So, how scary is this situation? It tears apart the last veil of some PoW chains, as we often say that "hash power" is the moat of a chain—the greater the hash power, the more secure it is. However, Qubic's surprising experiment shows us that for coins mined with CPU/GPU, hash power is like mercenaries; whoever pays more gets their loyalty.

Even more intriguingly, after proving it could take down Monero, Qubic voluntarily withdrew. Why? They feared completely crashing Monero and affecting their own profits. A significant portion of the threefold returns still came from mining XMR, with $QUBIC serving merely as an additional token reward. If Monero crashes, Qubic wouldn't be able to walk away unscathed. It was better to exit gracefully, create a sensational marketing event, and humiliate the once staunch supporters of PoW. This feeling of "I can kill you but choose not to" is reminiscent of their AGI slogan, exuding a sense of rebelliousness.

Is AI the True Undertaker of PoW?

However, aside from the impact of the Monero incident, this situation is actually a significant negative for most general-purpose hardware PoW chains, as if these PoW chains were to fail, it might not be due to PoS, but rather AI.

Why do I say this? Previously, hash power was "solid," with everyone focusing on their own livelihoods. In the AI era, hash power has become completely "liquid," with CPU and GPU hash power flowing like water to wherever the returns are higher. The miners who once relied on this may one day unite and cause a revolution.

Although Qubic didn't play the villain, the success of their experiment inevitably encourages some competitors to use this method for malicious attacks, such as shorting a coin and then renting 51% hash power to attack, profiting when the coin price plummets. The options for such chains are limited: either weld miners to their tasks like BTC or continue using CPU/GPU mining and pray not to be targeted.

To be honest, there are quite a few such coins: Grin, Beam, Haven Protocol, ETC, RVN, Conflux… So you see, this isn't just a problem for one or two coins; the entire CPU/GPU mining ecosystem is hanging on the edge of a cliff.

The dire situation is that the demand for AI hash power is growing exponentially, and with so many AI hash power aggregation platforms emerging, if they all come to disrupt the market with exorbitant prices and platform incentives to purchase hash power, many PoW chains' security defenses could collapse.

A Ironic Paradox

The reason I find this situation absurd is that Qubic itself is an AI chain. Even if it withdrew from its so-called attack on Monero, it couldn't escape self-inflicted damage. The logic is simple: any AI chain that requires hash power should not use PoW for consensus. Because if hash power is used to maintain security, AI cannot be trained; if hash power is used to train AI, the chain becomes insecure.

Thus, most AI projects, like Bittensor using PoS and Render using a reputation system, almost no one dares to touch PoW. Everyone knows this, yet Qubic foolishly showcased its own Achilles' heel.

Qubic's recent antics, while appearing to be a technical event, fundamentally serve as a lesson for the entire crypto industry: in an era of free-flowing hash power, loyalty is a luxury, and most PoW chains cannot afford that price.

Qubic's attack demonstrated that traditional PoW can be easily shattered by economic incentives. Although it claims to be "useful PoW," it essentially relies on these "mercenary" hash powers that can be bought by higher bidders at any time.

Revolutionaries may also be overthrown by the next revolutionaries.

Note: Beyond the absurdity and the unknown panic felt by some PoW chains, two facts can be confirmed: 1. BTC is indeed impressive; 2. Vitalik Buterin truly has foresight.

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