Weekly Project Updates: Monero Suffers 51% Attack, MyStonks' Freezing of Assets Sparks Controversy, LayerZero Buys Stargate for $110 Million, etc

Aug 16, 2025

1. SlowMist Founder: Qubic Pool’s 51% Attack on Monero Appears to Be Successful link

The 51% attack launched by Qubic mining pool on Monero appears to have succeeded. The mining pool currently controls the majority of the network’s hashing power, and a major blockchain reorganization was detected on Tuesday morning. Qubic can tamper with on-chain history, launch double-spending attacks, and censor any transactions. It is estimated that the cost of sustaining this attack is as high as $75 million per day. Qubic responded that the Monero experiment is proceeding exactly as planned, and everything will be revealed in due time.

On Friday, Qubic announced that it had once achieved over 51% hash rate control in the Monero network, resulting in 6 blocks being reorganized and 60 blocks becoming orphans. Preliminary reports show that Qubic mined 80% of Monero’s total blocks within two hours. Approximately 750 XMR and 7 million XTM were mined in this round. Together with the unsold Tari from the previous round, a total of 17.2 billion QUBIC were destroyed, with an average destruction price of 3,200 QUBIC per billion, equivalent to approximately $55,000. Meanwhile, Computors and miners received a total of 62.2 billion QUBIC rewards, worth about $200,000. Currently, Qubic’s mining revenue is nearly 4 times that of Monero, and the relevant “51% attack experiment” is still ongoing.

In a previous report, Qubic announced this hashing power attack operation in advance. They stated that to test their own capabilities, they redirected a large amount of computing resources to mine Monero. Initially, they spent 50% of the time mining Monero and 50% training internal AI, with profitability three times higher than directly mining Monero. Later, the team attempted to take over the Monero protocol to change the rules so that only miners mining through Qubic could receive rewards. Despite obstacles such as DDoS attacks during the experiment, it continues to advance.

Note from WuBlockchain Team: Qubic’s ability to gain a 51% hashing power advantage over Monero in this incident mainly stems from the fact that Monero’s RandomX algorithm is highly CPU-mining friendly, while the current total network hashing power base is small (approximately 3–4 GH/s). At the same time, the Qubic network itself is a decentralized computing platform with a large number of high-performance CPU nodes, which is highly compatible with the RandomX algorithm, allowing it to concentrate sufficient hashing power to achieve control in a short period. It should be noted that this method is difficult to have a similar impact on mainstream PoW public chains with large hashing power scales and high hardware thresholds, but it may still pose a potential threat to other CPU-mining chains with relatively limited hashing power scales.

2. User Accuses MyStonks of Freezing $6.2 Million, MyStonks Responds That It Received a Law Enforcement Request link

Twitter user @thcaroline2233 claimed that 6.2 million US dollars could not be withdrawn due to triggering risk control on the crypto-stock platform MyStocks, and that they were muted in the Telegram group. MyStonks stated that it had received a law enforcement request from a regulatory authority regarding a certain user, saying that some users have used MyStonks as a mixer since its establishment, and the compliance department has intercepted such activities.

3. Ronin Announces It Will Complete Layer 2 Upgrade in 2026 link

Ronin has announced that it will complete the upgrade and transformation from an Ethereum sidechain to a full Layer 2 in the first or second quarter of 2026. This upgrade introduces a new economic model, Proof of Distribution, which shifts the staking rewards of RON from passive validators to active developers, distributing incentives based on their staking size and Builder Score (including on-chain transaction fees, treasury revenue, TVL, and other metrics). After the upgrade, the transaction speed is expected to increase by 12 times, and the network will adopt Ethereum’s data availability and security mechanisms while maintaining RON as the native gas token.

4. Taiko Launches Pre — confirmation Function on Ethereum Mainnet link

Ethereum scaling project Taiko announced the completion of the first-phase deployment of its pre-confirmation system on the Ethereum mainnet, with a transaction response time of approximately 2 seconds. The official stated that this feature enhances the transaction predictability and usability of base rollups, which is expected to promote faster and more decentralized interaction experiences for DeFi, GameFi, and enterprise-level applications.

5. LayerZero Foundation Plans to Acquire Stargate Cross — chain Bridge and Its Tokens for $110 Million link

The LayerZero Foundation has put forward an acquisition proposal of approximately $110 million to Stargate DAO, intending to acquire the Stargate cross-chain bridge and its STG token. It plans to dissolve Stargate DAO and swap STG for LayerZero’s native token ZRO at a rate of 1 STG to 0.08634 ZRO.

6. Lido’s Share in Ethereum Staking Market Drops to 24.4%, Reaching an All — time Low link

Figment has added approximately 344,000 ETH in staking in the past month, with its market share rising to 4.5%, becoming the Ethereum staking institution with the largest growth; Lido has lost about 285,000 ETH, and its market share in the Ethereum staking market has dropped to 24.4%, a record low. Analysts say that the decline in Lido’s proportion reflects intensified competition in the Ethereum staking ecosystem and accelerated development of institutional-level infrastructure, which helps mitigate the risk of dominance by a single provider.

7. GMX Completes $44 Million V1 Vulnerability Compensation, GLP Holders Can Now Claim GLV Tokens link

GMX announced the completion of a compensation plan worth approximately $44 million to make up for GLP holders affected by the V1 vulnerability on Arbitrum. Eligible users can now claim compensation through the GMX dApp in the form of two GLV tokens (the portfolio includes approximately 25% WBTC, 25% ETH, and 50% stablecoins), which includes $2 million in support from the DAO treasury and $500,000 in incentives for holding GLV. The attacker in this incident accepted a $5 million bug bounty and returned the relevant funds. V2 was not affected by the vulnerability and operated normally. GLP redemptions are expected to open in approximately 10 days.

8. Uniswap Foundation Plans to Adopt Wyoming DUNA Framework to Establish DUNI, Paving the Way for Launching Protocol Fees link

Uniswap Foundation has proposed establishing a new legal entity DUNI for its DAO under Wyoming’s “DUNA” framework, maintaining the existing governance structure and having the ability to hire service providers, enter into contracts, and fulfill compliance obligations. The entity will be allocated UNI tokens worth $16.5 million to cover historical taxes and penalties expected to be less than $10 million, and to establish a legal defense budget. The DUNA framework can provide a legal basis for the subsequent launch of protocol fees, which will go into the DAO treasury and cannot be directly distributed to UNI holders.

9. PumpFun’s Market Share Rebounds to 75%, Regaining the Leading Position in Solana Memecoin Launch Platform link

The market for memecoin launch platforms in the Solana ecosystem has formed a duopoly between PumpFun and LetsBonk. Since 2025, PumpFun has maintained approximately 80% market share among graduated tokens, but LetsBonk quickly captured nearly 70% market share in early July. On August 6th, PumpFun regained the lead in the daily new token issuance volume within 24 hours, and its current market share has rebounded to about 75%.

10. Grayscale Applies to US SEC for Approval to Launch DOGE ETF with Code “GDOG” link

In its registration statement filed on Friday, Grayscale stated that it will rename the Grayscale Dogecoin Trust to Grayscale Dogecoin Trust ETF and plans to list it for trading on NYSE Arca under the ticker symbol “GDOG”. Previously, NYSE Arca had already submitted relevant documents for the Grayscale Dogecoin Trust. Grayscale is not the only institution applying for such a product; Rex-Osprey and Bitwise have also submitted similar applications.

Wu Blockchain

Discussion about this post

Ready for more?