Monero accelerates FCMP upgrade after 51% attack attempts on Qubic

After concerns arose over the possibility of a 51% attack by the Kivik Mining Pool, Monero announced on August 26 that development of Full Chain Membership Proof (FCMP) upgrades will soon advance and the launch of the Testnet is expected soon.

Codebase improvements and solutions

Following the recent controversy over a 51% attack by the Kubik Mining Pool, Monero confirmed on August 26 that its full chain membership proof (FCMP) development is fast moving forward, with the first testnet expected to be live soon. This upgrade is hailed as a significant technical leap designed to address years of vulnerabilities in Monero’s privacy model.

A core advantage is that the upgrade allows Monero to generate zero-knowledge proofs that allow users to verify the validity of a transaction without revealing their identity or transaction amount. New technologies also dramatically reduce the time taken by XMR transactions using multiple inputs, generate encrypted proofs, and reduce processes from over 5 minutes to just 1 minute.

Additionally, Monero’s developers have cleaned up their codebase and removed redundant and duplicate code to make them more lean, easier to maintain, and less susceptible to bugs. According to a recent X post by Monero Research Lab, developers have also fixed bugs, cleaned up foreign functional interfaces (FFIs), improving inter-language compatibility and reducing technical debt.

Monero’s confirmation that FCMP is on track seems to be a direct effort to reassure supporters and address the vulnerabilities that motivated the Qubic Mining pool to pursue a 51% attack. Monero reportedly takes advantage of elements of Dash’s technology stack as part of its strategic move to counter Qubic.

While there is no consensus as to whether Qubic actually achieved the feat, market data suggests that the broader crypto community is never entirely certain that the broader crypto community actually explained more than half of Monero’s hashrate. The charge led to a short sale of XMR, slightly above $233 on August 16th, but Privacy Coin quickly recovered and has since traded over $250.

Hybrid Solution Discussion

The Qubic 51% attack claim not only rekindled debate within the crypto community, but also highlights the importance of transparency and verification within the blockchain ecosystem. Joel Valenzuela, a core member of Dash Dao, described the Qubic attempt as a “attractive experiment” that should be causing concerns about the ASIC resistance chain.

“Qubic only showed what is possible. A much better funding, and a more decisive actor can cause so much confusion. This is the beginning of an extinction level threat to proof of work. It’s a ‘evolution or death’ moment,” Valenzuela said.

However, Dash DAO core members believe the controversy could spur unprecedented levels of innovation in the Proof of Work (POW) network. Still, the claim has once again brought Monero’s hybrid consensus solution idea to the forefront, an idea approved by leading developer Luke Parker.

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