Monero’s 51% Attack: When Miners Choose Greed Over Privacy

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Oh, Monero – the privacy king! 🏆 With its cryptographic magic, ring signatures, and an ironclad promise of anonymity, it’s been the secret weapon of those seeking a stealthy digital getaway. But guess what happened in 2025? A 51% attack. Yup, the kind you thought only happened in wild conspiracy theories. 🙄

So, what happened? It all started with Qubic, a project led by Sergey Ivancheglo – the guy who co-founded IOTA and NXT. And no, this wasn’t some shady hacker crew breaking into your grandma’s email. No, no. This was a full-blown, economic incentive-driven move. 🤑

What in the world is a 51% attack?

In Proof-of-Work (PoW) blockchains, miners race against each other to solve cryptographic puzzles, validate transactions, and-here’s the kicker-get rewarded. Sounds like a fun job, right? 💰 Well, the system works on a lovely little assumption: no one entity controls more than half of the network’s mining power. Spoiler: that assumption got wrecked.

Reorganize blocks. Reverse transactions. Create double-spends. Easy peasy! 💥
Exclude or censor other miners. Because, why not? 😈
Stop new transactions from getting confirmed. Super fun, right? 🙃

And before you say, “That’s impossible!”-Hashrate can be rented or bought. Just like ordering pizza. 🍕

Monero vs Qubic – When miners decided they like money more than privacy.

Now, hold onto your hats because this is where it gets juicy. The attack wasn’t some slick hack. Oh no, no. Qubic practically *begged* miners to abandon ship by offering them triple the mining rewards. 🤑 Miners who’d been loyal to Monero for years suddenly took off faster than a car on fire.

Rekt News said it best:
“Triple the mining rewards proved more powerful than years of ideological commitment to decentralization. Miners jumped ship faster than passengers on the Titanic.” 🛳️💨

And boom, just like that-Qubic made Monero look like it was built out of wet cardboard. A classic 51% attack in action.

Privacy coins under fire – The regulatory drama.

As if Monero wasn’t having a bad enough day, privacy coins were already under fire from regulators. Chainalysis reported that $3.2 billion in private coins were tied to money-laundering in 2024. Up 33%! Talk about a trend no one wants to follow. 😬

Regulators were tightening the noose, demanding peer-to-peer exchanges play “show us your papers!” with sender and receiver identities. 📜 Exchanges, of course, responded by delisting Monero, Zcash, and other privacy coins. Qubic’s move? Just the cherry on top of that very suspicious sundae. 🍒

But was it really an attack?

Qubic’s defense was like something out of a bad soap opera. “Oh, we were just stress-testing decentralization,” they said, while also disabling reporting APIs and metrics. Because… stress-testing? 🤔

Monero’s developers weren’t buying it. Some called it social hacking, others thought it was just a twisted game theory experiment. Either way, the damage was done – Monero’s reputation as the invincible fortress of privacy took a serious hit. 💔

Other 51% attacks – Been there, done that.

As dramatic as the Monero attack was, it wasn’t the first rodeo. PoW networks with small hashrates have been getting rocked by 51% attacks for years now. Talk about déjà vu!

Ethereum Classic (ETC) – Hit like a truck multiple times in 2019 and 2020. 🛻
Horizen (ZenCash) – Attacked in 2018, probably because someone was testing ASICs. 🤖
Bitcoin Gold (BTG) and Verge (XVG) – Repeatedly attacked. Are these small chains even trying to stay safe? 🤦

Lesson learned: PoW security is all about the economics. When it’s profitable to attack, someone will. 💸

Decentralization? Oh, you mean “decide-as-you-go”?

Monero’s big lesson: Blockchain networks aren’t just built on code-they’re social systems, too. The “community of miners” we once envisioned as crypto-idealists? Turns out, they’re just in it for the cash. 💵 When the price is right, loyalty goes out the window faster than a rocket on caffeine.

Monero might not be the last to fall. Other PoW coins like Zcash (ZEC), Grin (GRIN), and Litecoin (LTC) are sitting ducks. And privacy coins? They’re in a nasty tug-of-war between regulators and miners. Not pretty. 😬

And there you have it-Qubic showed us all that decentralization is as fragile as a house of cards when profit comes knocking. 🃏

Yaroslav Kalynychenko, the head of marketing at Generis Web3 Agency, probably knows more about crypto than we know about our own families. 🧠

2025-08-23 07:42

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