The computing power attack on Qubic reveals the polarization of the mining ecosystem.

Author: Haotian

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

Who is Qubic?

Before telling this magical story, I need to explain what Qubic is.

The founder of Qubic is Sergey Ivancheglo, who is known in the circle as Come-from-Beyond. He is a tech fanatic - he created the first PoS blockchain NXT and also came up with the first DAG architecture IOTA. In 2022, the Qubic mainnet was launched, claiming to do three things: build an ultra-fast chain that processes 15.5 million transactions per second (20,000 times faster than Visa), turn mining computing power into AI training power, and ultimately achieve AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) by 2027 (something even OpenAI wouldn’t dare to claim). Sounds quite magical and outrageous, doesn't it? Why such big ambitions?

It is well known that traditional POW mining is criticized for wasting electricity, as most mining mechanisms involve miners using power-consuming computing power to solve mathematical problems to compete for reward blocks, which essentially wastes computing power to obtain rewards.

Qubic's new consensus is Useful Proof of Work (UPow), which allows miners to mine on the POW chain while also training their AI system AIGarth under the coordination of the contractor, effectively earning two incomes for one unit of computing power.

This is why they were able to easily buy off Monero miners, as the profits given to miners once reached three times that of directly mining XMR. Think about it, miners can have their cake and eat it too; what "loyalty" is there in the face of "interests"?

Alright, the underlying logic of how Monero was attacked by vampires has been explained without any technical content.

Let me explain why it is Monero and not Bitcoin.

The answer actually lies in the difference in mining methods.

The ASIC miners used for Bitcoin are custom machines specifically designed to mine BTC. They can only solve SHA-256 mathematical problems and cannot do anything else, or they can only mine coins that are similar to the BTC algorithm. However, the challenge is how demanding the computing power requirements are for mining BTC, and miners are stretched thin (operating 24 hours). Moreover, it is simply impossible to use ASICs to train AI.

Monero is different; it uses the RandomX algorithm, allowing mining with general-purpose CPUs. This means its miners can mine today, train AI tomorrow, and render videos the day after, completely capable of multitasking.

The brilliance of Qubic lies here: it targets CPU miners, allowing them to "use one machine for two purposes," which led to this 51% hash power attack or control incident. On the contrary, Bitcoin's moat is quite solid; miners are trapped by limited ASIC miners in the act of mining and can only stick to Bitcoin.

Computing power has become mercenaries.

So how terrifying is the impact of this matter? It has torn apart the last bit of shame for some POW chains, because we always say that "hashrate" is the moat of a chain, and the greater the hashrate, the safer it is. However, Qubic has shown us through a shocking experiment: for coins that are mined with CPU/GPU, the hashrate is like mercenaries, whoever pays more gets their allegiance.

What's even more outrageous is that after Qubic proved it could take down Monero, it voluntarily withdrew. Why? Because it was afraid of crashing Monero completely and affecting its own profits. A significant part of the 3x returns still comes from mining XMR, and $QUBIC is merely an additional token reward. If Monero crashes, Qubic wouldn't be able to walk away unscathed. It’s better to withdraw elegantly, create a sensational marketing event, and humiliate the former staunch supporters of POW. This feeling of "I could kill you but I won't" seems to reflect the same reckless abandon as their AGI slogan, doesn’t it?

Is AI really the true grave digger of POW?

However, aside from the impact of the Monroe incident, this is actually a significant negative for most general-purpose hardware POW chains, because if these POW chains are to fail, it may not be due to POS, but possibly AI.

Why do I say this? In the past, computing power was "solid"; everyone focused on their own livelihoods. In the AI era, computing power has been completely "liquefied"; CPU and GPU computing power flows like water, only going to places with higher returns. The original "miners" who relied on this might one day unite and cause a revolution.

Although Qubic has not made any villains, once the experiment succeeds, it is inevitable that some competitors will use this method to conduct malicious attacks, such as shorting a certain coin first and then renting 51% of the computing power to attack, waiting for the coin price to plummet before taking profits. There are two paths in front of such chains: either lock miners in like BTC or continue to mine with CPU/GPU, praying not to be targeted.

To be honest, there are quite a few coins like this, Grin, Beam, Haven Protocol, ETC, RVN, Conflux...... So you see, this is not just a problem of one or two coins, but the entire CPU/GPU mining ecosystem is hanging on the edge of a cliff.

The problem is that the computational power demand of AI is growing exponentially, and with so many AI computing aggregation platforms emerging, if they all come in and disrupt the market with sky-high prices and platform incentives to purchase computing power, it is likely that the security defenses of many POW chains will collapse.

A satirical paradox

The reason I say this matter is absurd lies in the fact that Qubic itself is an AI chain. Even if it withdraws its so-called experiment of attacking Monero, it cannot avoid self-inflicting damage. The reasoning is simple: any AI chain that requires computational power should not use PoW for consensus. This is because if computational power is used to maintain security, AI cannot be trained; if computational power is used to train AI, the chain becomes unsafe.

So, for most AI projects, Bittensor uses PoS, Render uses a reputation system, and almost no one dares to touch PoW. Everyone knows this, but unexpectedly Qubic foolishly showcased its own weakness.

Qubic's recent maneuver appears to be a technical event on the surface, but fundamentally, it serves as a lesson for the entire Crypto industry: in an era of freely flowing computing power, loyalty is a luxury, and most PoW chains cannot afford this price.

Qubic has demonstrated through this attack that traditional PoW can be easily shattered by economic incentives. Although it claims to be "useful PoW," it essentially relies on these "mercenary" computing powers that can be purchased by higher bidders at any time.

Revolutionaries may also be revolutionized by the next revolutionary.

Note: Beyond the absurdity and the unknown panic of some POW chains trembling, everyone can confirm two facts: 1. BTC is truly impressive; 2. Vitalik Buterin has real foresight.