Was there a Monero 51% attack today?

Holders of the world’s largest privacy coin lost over $300 million in market capitalization today after a promotional stunt dominated Monero’s proof-of-work mining network.

Despite a broad rally in crypto asset prices today, Monero (XMR) lost 7% of its value over the last 24 hours over fears of a “51% attack” as small token project Qubic attempted a mining network takeover.

Although the stunning hashrate displacement took many privacy advocates by surprise, the incident was planned and broadcasted in advance.

Over the last two weeks, XMR has lost one-fifth of its value despite a 2% increase in crypto prices. During the past month, the coin has shed one-quarter of its market capitalization.

Monero’s big new miner speaks out

Protos reached out to Qubic administrators for comment via Telegram. The team was quick to deny that their well-publicized demonstration was any kind of 51% attack.

“It was a takeover and demonstration” of the project’s “outsourced computation capability,” an administrator clarified.

Moreover, the demonstration has been underway and growing for nearly a month as an effort to briefly “dominate the Monero network” which succeeded today in “successfully reorganizing the blockchain.”

Protos asked whether a stakeholder in Qubic rented the machinery or electricity for the demonstration. “Hashpower wasn’t rented,” clarified the administrator, “it was provided by our miners.”

They also claimed that even during the demonstration, the project’s miners were mining XMR for only about half of the time.

Read more: No, Monero’s privacy didn’t suddenly break in this viral video

Monero takeover: A strategic application of game theory

Overall, Qubic claims that its “strategic, and at times combative, application of game theory” prevailed over the largest privacy coin’s mining network.

In a blog post, an administrator wrote that the project’s goal is to directly provide Monero protocol’s security — a changeover from over a decade of other miners leading this function.

A token associated with Qubic has rallied 15% over the last 24 hours and nearly doubled over the last month.

Many posts in the official Telegram channel over the past few days focus on the price performance of the token.

Despite the project’s official characterization of the event, BitMEX and other observers displayed skepticism. SlowMist’s founder claimed that the 51% takeover did occur, yet BitMEX Research claims that it didn’t.

A top team member of the project responded to BitMEX Research’s skepticism, promising to provide proof of the dominance rate and soon following up with a blog post.

In response to BitMEX’s post to X, an administrator told Protos via Telegram, “We are still waiting on independent confirmation, and the scope now is to keep >51% for 100 blocks which is around three hours to clear up any doubt.”