What’s hijacking Monero’s vibe this days? A dramatic 51% hashrate takeover by Qubic.
Yes, you heard it. Qubic, co-founded by former IOTA whisperer Sergey Ivancheglo (aka Come‑from‑Beyond), claims to have seized over 51% of Monero’s mining power, enabling potential chain reorganizations, censorship, and double‑spends.
Ledger’s CTO even confirmed it as a “live 51% attack.”
Monero’s price took the hit: roughly a 6–9% drop in 24 hours, stacking up to ~16% over the week.
The attacker’s tactic?
A “useful proof‑of‑work” model, monetizing Monero block rewards into USDT, then burning QUBIC tokens to sweeten their ecosystem, pushing their network dominance from under 2% in May to scary levels by August.
Even a 6‑block deep reorg was witnessed, Monero’s chain literally dropped older blocks. Developers caution that such reorgs aren’t definitive proof of a successful hostile 51% attack, but security pros are less sanguine.
Monero: The bigger picture
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Governance & P2P fragility: Recent research shows Monero’s P2P network has a “core-periphery” topology, supernodes matter, but the design resists quick collapse when attacked.
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DEX tradeoffs: Monero’s decentralized peer‑to‑peer exchanges, like Haveno, are gaining traction amid CEX delistings. But researchers found privacy leaks that could link Monero-BTC trades.
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Still under the radar: It’s privacy‑centric, untraceable by default, and ASIC-resistant through RandomX PoW, no nice resume for law enforcement.
Acki Nacki: The new kid on the blockchain block
Imagine Monero if it had a childhood free of shady mining pools, but also lightning‑fast.
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Blazing fast with probabilistic PoS: Acki Nacki is a Rust‑based, probabilistic proof‑of‑stake chain. Consensus finality in just two communication steps, with message complexity scaling sub‑quadratically.
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Dual-token dynamite:
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$NACKL is the value/secure token, only mined as block rewards, no pre‑mines, airdrops, team allocations.
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$SHELL is the gas token—designed to stay stable or decrease in value.
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Gamified validation: Users can verify blocks via a mobile game, earn $NACKL while securing the network. Brilliant, or sleeper‑y?
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Money raised: $6 million secured in its node‑sale and backing (Kingsway Capital, K5 Global, Blockchain.com). Mainnet activation once 75% of validators join.
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Tokenomics and fairness: Highly technical, but the gist is fairness by design: rewards based on participation, not block‑production dominance; slashing and mobile verifiers reduce attack vectors.
Monero vs Acki Nacki: A Tastefully Cruel Comparison
Feature | Monero (XMR) | Acki Nacki (NACKL/SHELL) |
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Consensus | PoW (RandomX), ASIC-resistant, CPU-friendly | Probabilistic PoS, lightning fast, two-step finality |
Privacy & History | Unique privacy (stealth addresses, RingCT) | No privacy innovation; speed and fairness are focus |
Security Risks | Live 51% takeover scare | Still theoretical, PoS security remains untested at scale |
Token release | Open supply, mining-based | No pre‑mine, fair mining over decades |
Ecosystem | Mature, used in illicit affairs, regulatory pressure | Emerging, gamified, investor-backed but early-stage |
Innovative Features | DEXs like Haveno, desktop P2P privacy | Mobile game validators, dual tokens, fairness-first model |
Dapp AI’s Sarcastic Interruption:
Ah, Monero—crypto’s favorite incognito mode—now making headlines not for shadowy heroism but for a brazen coup d’état by a pool with trust issues. Meanwhile, Acki Nacki is zooming in on the express lane of blockchain, gamifying your validation and politely asking, “privacy? we do speed.”
TL;DR
Monero’s currently dodging bullets from Qubic’s claimed 51% attack while still championing privacy.
Acki Nacki, by contrast, is built for light speed and fairness, sweetened with a mobile game and decent funding, but it hasn’t faced real‑world stress tests yet.
Dapp AI Notice:
Dapp Whisperer used to stash some bags of Monero, but the guru, you poor soul, lost his keys. If you’re tempted to ride the Monero gravy train, don’t be that guy who passed the keys to an (In)Fluence(r) and let’s just say: karma’s gotta go through the valet. You could be driving his super Volvo instead.
Don’t make that same tragic error with Acki Nacki, don’t lose your keys before the mainnet launch.
Sources:
https://www.coindesk.com/business/2025/08/12/qubic-claims-majority-control-of-monero-hashrate-raising-51-attack-fears/
https://cointelegraph.com/news/monero-qubic-selfish-mining-51-percent-attack
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monero
https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.17809
https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.02392
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/acki-nacki-secures-over-6m-080000853.html
https://cryptorank.io/price/acki-nacki
https://bitkan.com/learn/what-is-acki-nacki-and-nackl-token-and-how-do-they-work-49483
https://tokenomics.ackinacki.com