Epoch 178 Recap – Profitability Update

TL;DR: Epoch Summary:

• Total of ~ 723 XMR + 7M XTM mined, translating to $290,000 profit.

• 145 billion QUBIC burned at an average of rate of $2000 per B.

• Qubic performed 18-block reorganization on Monero blockchain.

• Monero experiment / mining is ongoing.

Epoch Earnings and Network Growth

In the most recent epoch, Qubic’s custom mining initiative generated an estimated 723 Monero (XMR) and 7 million Tari (XTM). These earnings, valued at approximately $290,700, were converted into 145 billion QUBIC.

It is important to note that some of the previous weeks Monero and Tari mined rewards were sold during this epoch. This has to do with random pauses of XMR and XTM deposits and withdrawals on various exchanges.

This Epoch the extra rewards were distributed to miners instead of buying back QUBIC and permanently burning it. The profitability of Qubic miners vs Monero miners will be posted on Qubic X tomorrow.

Stable Protocol Profits

The test of Outsourced Computations is complete. Qubic has successfully implemented the functionality of outsourcing some of its vast mining power to a different task: mining Monero for profit at scale.

For the past few weeks, Qubic has been mining Monero with great success, averaging daily profits of $30,000 to $35,000. This profitability has proven to be stable and dependable, even amid fluctuations in the Qubic price.

Interestingly, this small part of Qubic’s operation places it among the most profitable protocols in the market. At approximately $32,000 per day, Qubic ranks alongside some of the most famous and profitable projects in the blockchain space on the DeFiLlama revenue rankings chart.

Monero’s Persistent Problems

Qubic continues to utilize selfish mining strategies and regularly exceeds 51% of Monero’s network hash power. On September 14th, a Monero blockchain reorganization of 18 blocks occurred, affecting blocks 3499659 through 3499676 and invalidating 118 transactions. This was the largest such event to date. While this would be a disaster for many blockchains, it’s being treated as business-as-usual after all the past noise. It shouldn't be.

Two weeks ago, Qubic issued a warning that it was able to orphan 16 blocks in Monero chain during epoch 175 but limited it to 9 blocks to prevent any risk of double-spend. Since the centralized exchanges increased their confirmation times, the 18 block reorg was safe to perform but it points to the existing problem in the Monero chain.

Interestingly, Qubic and Monero developers are working together in Qubic Discord to figure out the details of this event, and the Qubic team is in discussion to place a voluntary limit on reorganizations to a maximum of 9 blocks once again. This proves Qubic’s “white hat” intentions once again.

The initial excitement and thrill of this adventure have quieted down, but Qubic wants to remind the Monero team that they should not relax. The underlying issues and weaknesses found in their network have not been resolved. With the halving of rewards and a significant downward price correction for Qubic, it continues to be more profitable to mine with CPUs than Monero.

A High Possibility of a 51% Takeover

Let’s re-examine the setup of Qubic's economic model against Monero. Since the halving several weeks ago, a decision was made that if the price of Qubic is above the previous week's epoch change, the rewards from the mined Monero are distributed to Qubic miners as a bonus. If the price is lower, the rewards are converted into Qubic coins and are permanently burned.

Do you see the threat in this? As the price of Qubic steadily climbs, miners receive more value from their standard Qubic protocol rewards. Furthermore, they begin getting bonuses from the mined Monero rewards. This flywheel will attract many miners simply because of the extremely high rewards disparity compared to Monero.

Although the initial excitement has muted, the possibility of Qubic completely taking over Monero is very high. Don't ignore this. Don't dismiss this. Don't be cavalier about this. Instead, build and evolve.

 For more information:

• Join the discussion on Discord and Telegram.

• Join the Qubic network to become a Computor, miner, or innovator.