For context, a 51% attack refers to a situation where a group of miners gains more than 50% of a blockchain’s mining hash rate. On Tuesday, August 12, Qubic, a project led by IOTA co-founder Sergey Ivancheglo, claimed that it has seized control of the majority of the Monero blockchain’s hash rate.
The cryptocurrency exchange said:
This concentration of mining power poses a potential risk to network integrity. We are actively monitoring the situation and will resume deposits once we determine it is safe to do so. Trading and withdrawals for XMR remain fully operational.
Following the release of Qubic’s claim, emerging reports on social media platform X revealed that there indeed was a six-block reorganization on the Monero blockchain, suggesting that the team does control a large enough portion of the hash rate.
The reaction of the XMR price to these claims of a 51% attack on the Monero blockchain has been fairly measured. While the altcoin did lose more than 10% of its value immediately the news broke out and a further 5% in the subsequent days, the Monero token seems to be recovering well.
As of this writing, the Monero token is valued at around $265, reflecting a nearly 12% jump in the past 24 hours. Meanwhile, CoinGecko data shows that the altcoin is down by only 4% on the weekly timeframe.
