jakiro
Author: Haotian
Monero XMR, a private currency project with a market value of 6B, was actually attacked by a small project with a market value of only 300 million yuan with 51% computing power?WTF, it’s not because of its awesome technology, but because it’s too absurd.Come on, let me talk.
Where is Qubic sacred?
Before telling this magical story, we must first talk about what Qubic is.
The founder of Qubic is Sergey Ivancheglo, and people in the circle call him Come-from-Beyond. This man is a tech crazier – he created the first PoS blockchain NXT and created the first DAG architecture IOTA.In 2022, the Qubic main network is launched, and it is said to do three things: build a super fast chain with 15.5 million transactions per second (20,000 times faster than Visa), turn mining computing power into AI training computing power, and finally realize AGI general artificial intelligence in 2027 (even OpenAI dare not shout like this).It sounds like it’s magical, outrageous.Why are you so ambitious?
We all know that traditional POW mining has been criticized for wasting power, because most mining mechanisms are miners using power-consuming computing power to do math problems to seize the Reward block, which is equivalent to wasting computing power in exchange for rewards.
Qubic’s new consensus is a useful proof of work (UPow), which allows miners to mine POW chains while scheduling as contractors, miners can also train their AI system AIGarth, which is equivalent to making two portions of money with one piece of computing power.
This is why they could easily bribe Monroe’s miners, because the income to miners once reached three times that of directly mining XMR.Think about it, if miners can eat more fish, there is no “loyalty” in the face of “interest”.
Okay, after reading this Monero’s underlying logic being attacked by vampires, it was explained without any technical content.
Let me give you some science, why is it Monero, not Bitcoin
The answer lies in the differences in mining methods.
The ASIC mining machine used for Bitcoin is a customized machine that specializes in mining BTC. It can do nothing except calculate the math problems of SHA-256, or it can only mine coins similar to BTC algorithms.But the problem is that there are multiple calculation power requirements for mining BTC, and miners are unable to do anything (24 hours a day), and it is impossible to let ASIC train AI.
Monroe is different. He uses the RandomX algorithm, which can be mined with a general CPU, which means that its miners can mine today, train AI tomorrow, and render video the day after tomorrow. He can fully play multiple roles.
This is where Qubic’s cleverness lies: it targets CPU miners and makes them “one machine and two-purpose”, which leads to this 51% computing power attack or control event.On the contrary, Bitcoin’s moat is very stable. Miners are welded to death by limited ASIC mining machines and can only defend Bitcoin;
Computing power became a mercenary
So how terrible is the impact of this matter?It tore up the last fig leaf of some POW chains, because we always say that “computing power” is the moat of a chain, and the greater the computing power, the safer it is. But Qubic used a shocking experiment to tell us: for CPU/GPU mining coins, computing power is mercenaries, and whoever gives more money will follow.
What’s even more sarcastic is that after Qubic proved that he could defeat Monero, he took the initiative to withdraw.Why?I am afraid that the complete collapse of Monero will affect my own profits.Because most of the 3x profits are mined XMR, $QUBIC is just used as an additional token reward. If Monroe collapses, Qubic will not be able to take it.It’s better to withdraw with ease and engage in a vigorous marketing incident to humiliate the firm supporters of the once POW. Does this feeling of “I can kill you but not kill” reveal the same unruly as the AGI slogan they shouted?
Is AI the real gravedigger in POW?
However, putting aside the impact of the Monroe incident, this incident is actually a big negative for most general hardware POW chains, because if this type of POW chain is about to be over, it is not POS, but AI that kills it.
Why do I say that before, the computing power was “solid state”, and everyone focused on their own business. In the AI era, the computing power was completely “liquidized”. The CPU and GPU computing power were like water, and would only flow to places with higher returns. The “miners” they used to survive might one day get together to cause trouble and revolution.
Although Qubic has not been a villain, if the experiment is successful, some competitors will inevitably use this method to engage in malicious attacks, such as shorting a certain currency first, then renting 51% of the computing power to attack, and then making a profit after the currency price plummets.There are two ways to put this type of chain. Either weld the miners to death like BTC, or continue to use CPU/GPU to mine, praying not to be targeted.
To be honest, there are quite a lot of this type of currency, Grin, Beam, Haven Protocol, ETC, RVN, Conflux… So you see, this is not a problem of one or two coins, but the entire CPU/GPU mining ecosystem is hanging on the edge of the cliff.
What’s bad is that the demand for AI computing power is growing exponentially, and so many AI computing power aggregation platforms have emerged. If they all come to disrupt the sky-high prices and platform incentives to buy computing power, then it is estimated that the security lines of many POW chains will collapse.
An ironic paradox
The reason why I say this is absurd is that Qubic itself is an AI chain. Even if it withdraws the experiment of attacking Monroe, it will inevitably cause 800 damage to itself.The reason is very simple. Any AI chain that requires computing power should not be used as a consensus on PoW.Because computing power is used to maintain security, AI cannot be trained; computing power is used to train AI, chains are not safe.
Therefore, for most AI projects, Bittensor uses PoS and Render uses a reputation system, and almost no one dares to touch POW. Everyone knows this, but they didn’t expect Qubic to show off their weaknesses foolishly.
Qubic’s operation this time is a technical event on the surface, but essentially a lesson to the entire Crypto industry: In an era of free flow of computing power, loyalty is a luxury, and most PoW chains cannot afford this price.
Qubic used this attack to prove that traditional PoW can be easily defeated by economic incentives.Although it claims to be a “useful PoW”, it essentially relies on these “mercenaries” computing power that may be bought by higher bidders at any time.
The revolutionary may also be revolutionized by the next revolutionary.
Note: In addition to the absurdity, and in addition to the unknown panic of some POW chains, you can confirm two facts: 1. BTC is really awesome; 2. VitalikButerin is really foresighted.
