The dark web darling Monero (XMR) got entangled in the midst of a successful 51% attack, according to Ledger’s CTO Charles Guillemet. The popular self-custodial crypto wallet’s co-founder dug into the privacy blockchain long-lasting fight against governments and the ‘three letter’ agencies, as the concealed transaction nature doesn’t comply with international laws.
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Because of this, major crypto exchanges like Binance decided to do it by the playbook and delist Monero (XMR), putting the privacy altcoin into the hands of decentralized exchanges (DEXs). Presently, the biggest Monero crypto trades occur on KuCoin, racking up over 30% of all XMR coin trading volume on Spot markets. HTX comes second with approximately 12%.
XMR Down Bad As Qubic Crew Takes Over
Despite the decentralized nature, “a major chain reorganization was detected this morning”, – notes Charles Gullemet. Having the Qubic mining pool in mind, he calculated that their amassed hashrate is now enough to cover 51% of the network.
Moreover, this attack presumably costs $75 million a day, “threatening to destroy confidence in the network overnight”. After a while, some XMR community members warned that the attack might be over, but Monero’s market value already slipped by 13%.
Per Charles Gullemet, the $6 billion blockchain is getting dominated by a $300 million one, while “options for recovery are limited”. As if that wasn’t enough, Ledger’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO) predicted a full takeover by the Qubic mining pool.
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Ledger CTO Charles Guillemet reported that the Qubic mining pool gained over 51% of Monero’s hash rate, enabling potential blockchain rewrites, double-spending, and transaction censorship. This was noted on August 12, 2025, after a six-block chain reorganization was detected.
Qubic, a blockchain project with a $300M market cap, led by IOTA co-founder Sergey Ivancheglo (Come-from-Beyond), allegedly orchestrated the attack, controlling up to 52.36% of Monero’s (XMR) hash rate.
While Guillemet and SlowMist’s founder confirmed a successful 51% attack, Monero’s founder Riccardo Spagni and others, like SeraiDEX’s Luke Parker, argue Qubic only briefly hit 51% and lacked enough confirmations for a full attack, calling it a block reorganization.
XMR dropped nearly 17% in a week, trading just above $252 at the time of publication, reflecting shaken investor confidence. Qubic’s token rose 4% amid the XMR takeover news.
The Monero community organized miner boycotts, reducing Qubic’s hashrate from 45% to under 14%. Qubic also faced an alleged DDoS attack, possibly from Monero supporters, disrupting its mining. Developers are exploring protocol changes like adjusting RandomX to prevent future attacks.
