***Qubic's "51% attack" on Monero: Here's what you need to know***

In August of this year, Qubic has claimed to have performed a successful 51% attack on the Monero network. However, this claim is questionable at best and deceptive at worst. Here's why:

1. ***Statistics:*** Qubic's claims have been statistically inconsistent. For instance, their dashboard has shown them to have reached approximately 53% of the XMR network with a hash rate of 2.45 GH/s under the total network hash rate of 5.35 GH/s, while the total hash rate of other XMR pools was 4.41 GH/s. It has been speculated from this that Qubic's dashboard does not include itself in the total network hash rate. If this speculation is true, then Qubic's hash rate may only account for around 30% of the total hash rate, which is still a high number.[1]

2. ***Lack of Transparency:*** Furthermore, Qubic has disabled API hash rate reporting, which makes it more challenging to rely on them being honest about the 51% attack.[2][3]

3. ***Legitimacy***: According block data, Qubic only

did a single 6-block reorganization but did not repeat reorganizations or significant increase in orphan blocks that is in 51% attacks.[4] This puts into question if Qubic even intentionally wants to control a majority of Monero.

4. ***Lack of usual signs***: Despite supposedly have more than half of XMR network, there wasn't any signs associated with 51% attacks usually, such as double spending, censoring transactions, or rewriting of the blockchain.

***How should Monero users react?***

While the chances that Qubic successfully performed a 51% attack on Monero is pretty low, it does not mean that XMR users should not care about this news, as it means Qubic could still have a chunk of the blockchain if it just has 30% of it. Therefore, the XMR community should look for ways to give XMR stronger security. It also would be a good idea to look into alternatives to XMR, such as Firo and Zano, but not quit using XMR altogether.