Massive Monero Reorganization Wipes Out 36-Minute Transaction Chronicle
In a shocking turn of events, the Monero blockchain experienced its largest chain rollback ever, reorganizing 18 blocks and erasing 36 minutes of transaction history. This significant incident was a result of Qubic's latest actions, a AI-focused layer-1 blockchain team that recently acquired a significant portion of Monero's mining power.
Qubic, led by Sergey Ivancheglo, also known as 'Come-from-Beyond', executed the 18-block reorganization, invalidating 118 transfers. The incident has been linked to Qubic's withheld mining and potential majority hash control.
The rollback occurred between September 14 and 15 at block height 3,499,659. It has raised concerns in the Monero community, as it demonstrated that even ten confirmations may not provide adequate assurance. As a result, exchanges have extended their requirements to ensure the security of transactions.
Retrodrive, a Monero community member, reaffirmed Qubic's intentions to work with the community to define and overcome the privacy network's issues. However, Qubic's actions point to how concentrated mining power threatens the network.
Qubic finds it more profitable to mine with CPUs than Monero due to the halving of rewards and a significant downward price correction for Qubic. This has led some miners to urge others to move to smaller pools.
XMR, the native token of the Monero blockchain, has seen a rise of more than 5% on the day and nearly 12% on the week, suggesting a resilience in the face of adversity.
An XMR community podcaster known as Xenu wrote about the rollback, stating that it shattered the old rule of thumb that ten confirmations were enough to consider a transaction final. Some users have expressed intentions to stop accepting Monero until stability returns.
Despite the incident, Qubic's representatives have not commented on the incident as of the article's publication. Qubic plans to remind the Monero team that they should not relax, as the underlying issues and weaknesses found in their network have not been resolved.
The Monero community is currently grappling with the implications of this incident and is actively discussing solutions to prevent such occurrences in the future. The incident serves as a reminder of the importance of decentralisation and the need for continued vigilance in the blockchain industry.
