Epoch 173 Recap: The Monero Experiment

TL;DR: Epoch Summary:

• Qubic achieved over 51% hashrate dominance, resulting in six blocks being reorganized and sixty blocks orphaned.

• A preliminary report suggests Qubic found 80% of Monero's total blocks for two hours.

• Approximately 750 XMR and 7M XTM were mined.

• Leftover unsold Tari from the last epoch, plus the 7M XTM, totaled 17.2 billion QUBIC, which was burned at an average price of 3200 per billion, equivalent to about $55,000.

• Computors and miners were rewarded with 62.2B QUBIC, valued at approximately $200,000.

• The network reached a peak hashrate of 2.71 GH/s, accounting for 52% of the global Monero hashrate.

• A total of 5506 Monero blocks were found.

• Qubic is now almost four times more profitable than Monero for miners.

• The 51% Monero experiment is ongoing.

Profitability and Revenue

The profitability for Qubic miners has soared this period, while Monero's profitability has declined. This is due to an aggressive increase in the price of Qubic and high bonuses distributed to miners from the profits of Monero mining.

 This epoch's earnings totaled approximately 750 XMR and 7M XTM. Qubic’s custom mining generated roughly $240,000 in Monero and Tari earnings, with all mined XMR being converted into 62.2B QUBIC and distributed as a full reward to Computors and miners, valued at about $200,000.

The statistics for USD profits and QUBIC burn amounts were influenced by a slight decline in the price of Monero and a drastic increase in the price of Qubic.

The 5506 Monero blocks found by the Qubic network are a remarkable testament to its mining consistency and growing influence in the Monero ecosystem. Profitability metrics were maintained by a community member Eko in the Qubic Discord.

Preliminary Report on 51% Domination Claim

In our previous blog, we claimed that Qubic had reached over 51% of Monero’s hashrate. This claim was met with considerable doubt from various experts.

In the interest of accountability and transparency, the community decided to hire an independent blockchain expert. Dr. Shai Wyborski, a PhD in Quantum Cryptography and one of Qubic's strongest past critics, was chosen as he is an experienced and unbiased candidate.

His initial findings are presented here, with a full report still to come. As an extract from his preliminary review:

That being said, the preliminary view is honestly a bit astounding.

In the graph below, the blue line shows the fraction of blocks created by CFB's wallet out of all blocks created up to that time. The red line shows the fraction in a sliding (centered) window of 30 blocks (about one hour).

As we can see, while not quite being able to maintain superiority for the entire range, there are quite a few one-hour-long windows where Qubic created almost as many as 80% of the blocks in the window.

Performance During the "Marathons"

As part of implementing the base layer for Outsourced Computations, Qubic is testing its capabilities by redirecting its vast compute resources to mine another coin, Monero. This is more than just about profitability; it is an "economic demonstration" to showcase Qubic's Useful Proof of Work capabilities.

In the initial weeks, Qubic alternated between spending 50% of its time mining Monero and 50% training its in-house AI, AIGarth. This approach proved to be highly profitable, up to three times more lucrative than direct Monero mining and attracted additional compute power to the network.

With the experiment moving into an active phase, Qubic now runs "marathons," where 100% of its hash power is pointed at Monero. This allows for more time for the experiment and makes it significantly more profitable for Qubic miners.

During this epoch, there were three 24-hour marathons. The statistics were tracked by Qubic’s Jetski Pool dashboard:

The marathons on Saturday, August 9th, and Tuesday, August 12th were used to adjust some peripheral systems and reinforce the software against DDoS attacks.

The final marathon on Tuesday, August 12th, was the period during which the hashrate climbed over the 51% threshold on several occasions. This is the specific period currently being evaluated by Dr. Wyborski to confirm whether the 51% threshold has been breached.