What You Need to Know

• Monero’s blockchain has undergone an unprecedented 18-block reorganization, resulting in the invalidations of 118 transactions and a rollback of 36 minutes of transaction history.
• This reorganization occurred when Qubic, which had recently gained over 50% of Monero’s mining power, executed a longer chain that the Monero nodes accepted.
• The incident has sparked debates on the reliability of the Monero network, with suggestions for potential solutions like DNS checkpoints to prevent such future occurrences.

Monero’s blockchain experienced an 18-block reorganization on Sunday, its deepest to date, that effectively invalidated 118 confirmed transactions by rolling back 36 minutes of transaction history.

The reorg began at block height 3,499,659 when Qubic, a lesser-known AI-focused layer-1 blockchain, unleashed a longer chain that Monero’s network nodes accepted, orphaning the other chain’s previously confirmed blocks.

Implications and Market Reaction

• The recent attack follows a strategy by Qubic, which acquired >50% of Monero’s mining power last month leveraging a “useful proof-of-work” model. This model allows Qubic to convert XMR mining rewards into USDT to buy back and burn its own tokens.
• Despite this rollback, the price of XMR unexpectedly rose to a two-month high of $333 before slightly settling at $307.5, with a 24-hour increase of over 6.4% and a trading volume reaching $136 million.

“Personally, I don’t consider the Monero network reliable at this point,” said Vini Barbosa, adding he would stop accepting XMR payments until resolved.

“In the last 720 blocks (~24h), 213 blocks have been orphaned,” Vini noted, expressing deep concerns over the reliability of the network. He pointed out that one proposed solution involves DNS checkpoints, which may compromise the network’s decentralization.