Monero Accelerates FCMP Upgrade After Qubic’s 51% Attack Attempt

After concerns arose regarding a potential 51% attack by the Qubic mining pool, Monero announced on August 26 that the development of its Full-Chain Membership Proofs (FCMP) upgrade is advancing quickly, with a testnet launch expected soon.

Codebase Improvements and Countermeasures

Following the recent controversy over a purported 51% attack by the Qubic mining pool, Monero confirmed on Aug. 26 that its Full-Chain Membership Proofs (FCMP) development is advancing rapidly, with the first testnet slated to go live soon. This upgrade is hailed as a significant technical leap forward, designed to address a long-standing vulnerability in Monero’s privacy model.

As a core benefit, the upgrade will enable Monero to generate zero-knowledge proofs that allow users to verify a transaction’s validity without revealing identities or transaction amounts. The new technology will also dramatically reduce the time it takes for XMR transactions with multiple inputs to generate cryptographic proofs, cutting the process from over 5 minutes to just one minute.

In addition, Monero developers have been cleaning up the codebase, removing redundant and duplicate code to make it leaner, easier to maintain, and less susceptible to bugs. According to a recent X post by Monero Research Lab, developers have also fixed bugs and cleaned up the foreign function interface (FFI) to improve cross-language compatibility and reduce technical debt.

Monero’s confirmation that FCMP is progressing well appears to be a direct effort to reassure supporters and address the vulnerabilities that motivated the Qubic mining pool to pursue a 51% attack. Monero is reportedly leveraging elements of Dash’s technology stack as part of a strategic move to counter Qubic.

While there is no consensus on whether Qubic actually achieved the feat, market data suggest that the broader crypto community was never fully convinced that the mining pool had indeed accounted for more than half of Monero’s hashrate. While the claim led to a brief sell-off that saw XMR briefly plunge to just above $233 on Aug. 16, the privacy coin quickly recovered and has been trading above $250 ever since.

The Hybrid Solution Discussion

The Qubic 51% attack claim not only reignited a debate within the crypto community but has underscored the importance of transparency and verification within the blockchain ecosystem. Joel Valenzuela, a Dash DAO core member, described the Qubic attempt as a “fascinating experiment” that should be a cause for concern for ASIC-resistant chains.

“Qubic only showed what is possible. Much better-funded and more determined actors could cause so much more chaos. This could be the beginning of an extinction-level threat for proof-of-work. It’s an ‘evolve or die’ moment,” Valenzuela stated.

The Dash DAO core member, however, also believes the controversy could spur an unprecedented level of innovation on proof-of-work (PoW) networks. Still, the claim has once again brought to the forefront the idea of a hybrid consensus solution for Monero, an idea reportedly endorsed by key developer Luke Parker.

Valenzuela also noted that Zano, which uses a privacy protocol similar to that of Monero, already has such a hybrid solution. However, while some in the Monero community are now warming to the idea, Valenzuela reckons the community “is probably split 50/50 on this issue.”

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