Bad News for DOGE? Qubic Community Votes to Target Dogecoin After Monero 51% Attack

The community behind Qubic, an AI-focused blockchain project, has voted to target Dogecoin (DOGE) with its next 51% attack, just days after successfully taking majority control of the Monero (XMR) network.

Qubic founder Sergey Ivancheglo, known in crypto circles as Come-from-Beyond, asked the project’s community which ASIC-enabled, proof-of-work blockchain should be next in line.

Options included Dogecoin, Kaspa (KAS), and Zcash (ZEC). In a Sunday X post, Ivancheglo confirmed the outcome: “The Qubic community has chosen Dogecoin.”

Dogecoin Wins Qubic Vote With Over 300 Community Backers

Dogecoin, with a market capitalization of more than $35 billion, received over 300 votes, surpassing the combined tally of the other contenders.

Last week, Qubic shocked the crypto industry by announcing it had seized majority control of Monero’s hashrate.

Its mining pool successfully reorganized six blocks after a month-long battle with Monero miners. At press time, the pool commands around 2.32 GH/s, making it the most powerful on the network, according to MiningPoolStats.

Following the takeover, Qubic stressed that Monero’s core features, including privacy and transaction speed, remained intact, but added that its “end goal” was to have Monero’s security ultimately provided by Qubic miners.

The attack forced Kraken to temporarily suspend Monero deposits, citing “potential risk to network integrity.”

Withdrawals and trading remain unaffected, with deposits expected to resume once the exchange deems the network stable.

“A lot of electricity is burned for useless #PoW, we need that electricity for #AI,” Ivancheglo wrote on X when asked about the reasoning behind the attack.

“These words may be hard to get and I cannot reveal more now, in the future they will eventually click,” he added.

While Qubic says the event demonstrates it achieved full network control, Monero developers have pushed back.

Luke Parker, lead developer at SeraiDEX, argued that the six-block reorganization doesn’t definitively prove a successful 51% attack, only that “an adversary with a high amount of hash got lucky.”

Others aren’t so dismissive. Zhong Chenming, co-founder of cybersecurity firm SlowMist, said the attack “seems to have succeeded,” warning that Qubic’s pool could now, in theory, rewrite the blockchain and censor any transaction.

The confrontation began in late June, when Qubic announced it was redirecting its proof-of-work model, typically used for AI-related tasks, toward Monero mining.

The mined XMR would fund Qubic token buybacks and burns, creating a direct economic incentive to overpower the network.

Implications for Proof-of-Work

Qubic’s expansion plans raise new concerns for proof-of-work cryptocurrencies. By targeting high-profile networks like Dogecoin, the project is testing the resilience of some of the sector’s most established blockchains.

A 51% attack allows a single entity to control the majority of a network’s mining power, enabling double-spending and block reorganizations.

While Dogecoin’s significantly larger size compared to Monero presents a bigger challenge, the Qubic community’s vote signals clear intent to attempt it.

With Dogecoin’s prominence as the leading memecoin and one of the top 10 digital assets by market cap, any disruption could send shockwaves across the crypto market.