QUBIC, MONERO, AND THE TEMPTATION TO ATTACK BITCOIN
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They say great ideas never die, but sometimes they change shape. Just a few years ago, the crypto universe was a battleground where every project presented itself as the future of the web, money, or governance. Today, the ambition has mutated. It has become more radical. The narratives have become darker, more tactical, sometimes more violent. It's no longer just about building. It's also about destroying what exists, to make something else exist. And that's exactly what some projects have started to do. Qubic is a recent example. Not the first. Probably not the last.
When Qubic launched its attack on the Monero network, the reactions were first technical, then political. Officially, it was just a stress test. An experiment. In practice, it was a deliberate assault on a network that hadn't asked for it. Thousands of transactions were injected to saturate blocks, slow down confirmations, and clog the mempool. The goal wasn't to steal, nor to censor. The goal was to show that it could be struck. And struck hard. Monero, despite its anonymity and loyal user base, struggled. The infrastructure held up, but the load left its mark. Abnormal wait times, higher transaction fees, visible concern in the community. Mission accomplished, for Qubic.
But what's most disturbing isn't the attack's effectiveness. It's its logic. In an ecosystem supposed to promote decentralization, individual sovereignty, and technological freedom, some are beginning to use brute force as a marketing tool. It's as if the best way to demonstrate one's power is no longer to enlighten, but to obscure others. The Qubic project is no mere troll. It's part of this new generation of hybrid networks combining decentralized computing, integrated AI, automation, and viral strategies. In their vision, each blockchain is a terrain to be conquered or neutralized. And in their narrative, it's no longer just a race for adoption. It's a war for algorithmic influence.
The choice of Monero is not insignificant. It is the only major network that remains truly anonymous, resistant to address trackers, impervious to conventional analysis tools. Monero is disturbing. It is used for noble, but also sometimes dubious, purposes. It is a marginal network in terms of volume, but central to the imagination of digital resistance. Attacking it sends a signal. Showing that even networks built on an obsession with privacy are not invincible. The Qubic attack may have targeted blocks as much as minds.
It wasn't long before some commentators extrapolated. If Monero can collapse under pressure, what about Dogecoin? What, above all, about Bitcoin? The temptation is there. Prove that you can impact the mother chain. The one that structures everything else. Bitcoin remains the ultimate symbolic target. It embodies stability, intentional slowness, the robustness of the original architecture. But it also embodies the perceived vulnerability of a system without a central authority, without government shields, without recourse. Bitcoin is strong because it is open. And this openness is precisely what some would like to exploit.
The question isn't whether an attack on Bitcoin is technically possible. It isn't, or at absurd costs, beyond the reach of any single actor. The network is designed to withstand it. The miners, the nodes, the fee dynamics—everything in Bitcoin is designed to absorb aggression like a tree withstands a storm. But the attack wouldn't necessarily be technical. It could be narrative. Dissonant. Viral. A well-orchestrated campaign, mixing spam transactions, provocative content, and network effects on X, Reddit, TikTok, could be enough to create doubt, to give rise to a narrative of powerlessness, to rally the frustrated, the disappointed maximalists, the digital anarchists. This is what some projects are looking for. Not the fall. Creative chaos. Calculated instability. The deconstruction of trust.
Dogecoin, on the other hand, is much more vulnerable. It doesn't have the same defenses or the same economic solidity. It's a popular project, but largely neglected by developers. Its structure is based on old code, derived from Litecoin, and melt-mined without any real resilience plan. All it would take is a traffic spike, a deliberate saturation, a relay on the networks, to generate a temporary crisis. And since Dogecoin is still in the media spotlight, driven by figures like Musk, the domino effect could be spectacular. Profitable chaos for those who speculate on fear.
But Bitcoin isn't Dogecoin. And it's not Monero either. Those who talk about an attack on Bitcoin forget that the protocol isn't just code. It's an army of defenders. Incentivized miners. Volunteer nodes. Purists. Economists. Developers who scrutinize every pull request as if it were a human heart. This isn't a project like any other. It's a form of antifragile collective intelligence. Every perceived flaw becomes a reinforcement. Every attempt at subversion, a lesson. And every attack, even a failed one, reinforces the legitimacy of its existence.
So yes, Qubic can try. They can construct a narrative of conquest, break-in, and disillusionment. They can target Dogecoin for proof, Monero for fear, Bitcoin for tokenism. But the Bitcoin community has been through much worse. It has survived forks. Infighting. Censorship. Hate. Media. Bankers. Regulators. Clones. It won't cower before an automated script or an oracle bot.
The real question isn't: can Qubic attack Bitcoin? It's: what does it say about them that they want to? What does it say about us that we're considering it? There's a fatigue in the crypto world. A loss of meaning. Too many tokens, not enough ideas. Too many promises, not enough impact. Too much tech, not enough ethics. So some turn to destruction as a project. Hacking not to liberate, but to dominate. Attacking not to denounce, but to reign. It's the end of a cycle. The era of build is being replaced by the era of break.
But deep down, this return to confrontation isn't new. It's even healthy. It reminds all projects of the need for robustness, transparency, and simplicity. It reminds us that adoption isn't just a matter of hype or capitalization. It's a matter of resilience, in the face of time, doubt, and war. And in this game, Bitcoin still remains far ahead. Because it promises nothing. It doesn't seduce. It doesn't shout. It simply exists. It functions. It offers an escape route.
Maybe that's what drives some people crazy. The fact that Bitcoin doesn't need them. It doesn't need partnerships. It doesn't need artificial intelligence. It doesn't need an oracle or layer 42. It is. It stays. It waits. And meanwhile, others are restless. They fight to exist. They invent reasons for being. They attack, because they have nothing else to offer.
What if the real attack wasn't saturating a network, but trying to make us forget why we're here? What if the real danger wasn't the malicious code, but the doubt instilled in our minds? What if the only antidote was to remember that Bitcoin isn't a competitor. It's a compass. And other projects can happily move around it. It's not Bitcoin that's faltering. It's the world around it that's collapsing.
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