A new predator is stalking the crypto landscape—and its next target is Dogecoin.
Qubic, an AI-focused blockchain project, has confirmed it successfully executed a 51% attack on privacy coin Monero, seizing majority control of its hashrate and reorganizing blocks at will. Now, in a public vote, its community has chosen the world’s largest memecoin as its next victim.
Rather than stealing coins outright, Qubic has built a system of economic warfare—redirecting rewards from rival blockchains into its own token burn.
Rundown
- The Playbook: Qubic successfully took majority control of Monero’s hashrate, framing the 51% attack as a “stress test.” The project’s founder, Sergey Ivancheglo, confirmed the move, which led exchanges like Kraken to halt XMR deposits.
- Dogecoin is the Next Target: Following the Monero attack, Qubic’s community voted via Discord to target Dogecoin next. Ivancheglo made the announcement public: “The Qubic community has chosen Dogecoin.”
- A New Kind of Attack: Qubic calls its model “useful Proof-of-Work,” where it hijacks a network’s mining power, converts the rewards to stablecoins, and uses them to buy and burn its own QUBIC token. Critics call it a “vampire attack”—an economic parasite that drains value from its hosts.
The Playbook
Founder Sergey Ivancheglo—better known as “Come-from-Beyond,” a controversial IOTA co-founder—framed the Monero strike as a “stress test.” But the effect was real: hashrate dominance, chain reorganizations, and exchanges like Kraken halting XMR deposits.
“Monero appears to be in the midst of a successful 51% attack,” warned Charles Guillemet, CTO of Ledger. Despite Qubic’s claim that the network’s “core functionality remains intact,” the message was clear: the project could disrupt a major proof-of-work chain at will.
Dogecoin in the Crosshairs
With Monero subdued, Qubic escalated. On Discord, its community voted to target Dogecoin—a ~$35 billion network with global name recognition but far lower hashrate security than Bitcoin.
“The Qubic community has chosen Dogecoin,” Ivancheglo announced. The move turns a proof-of-concept into a headline confrontation, forcing Dogecoin to face its most serious threat since inception.
Useful Proof-of-Work—or Vampire Attack?
Qubic calls its strategy “useful Proof-of-Work” (uPoW). Its mining capacity floods a target chain, block rewards are converted into stablecoins, and those proceeds buy and burn Qubic’s native token.
The loop is self-feeding: the target chain is drained while Qubic’s tokenomics get a deflationary boost. Miners profit without concern for the host’s health.
When pressed on the point—“What’s the advantage beyond manipulating Qubic’s token price with buybacks and burns?”—Ivancheglo responded: “A lot of electricity is burned for useless #PoW, we need that electricity for #AI. These words may be hard to get and I cannot reveal more now, in the future they will eventually click.”
Critics in Monero’s community call it a “vampire attack”—a parasitic model that doesn’t kill outright but siphons away economic life.
ChainStreet’s Take
What Qubic calls a ‘stress test’ is, in reality, the weaponization of hashrate.
Classic 51% attacks were smash-and-grab, focused on double-spends. Qubic’s version is subtler, more insidious. It weakens a chain’s security budget while propping up its own ecosystem, leaving the host alive but compromised.
That playbook puts every mid-tier proof-of-work network in the crosshairs. If Dogecoin—backed by celebrity fandom and global brand value—can be undermined, no chain outside Bitcoin’s fortress-level hashrate is safe.
The deeper question: what is blockchain security worth if its own economic incentives can be inverted? Proof-of-work was built on the idea that hashrate guaranteed resilience. Qubic just proved it can be turned into a weapon.
Dogecoin is now on the clock.
