I just reviewed something that has been causing quite a stir in the Monero community lately. Sergey Ivancheglo, the co-founder of IOTA, is behind Qubic, a blockchain project that has been channeling a massive amount of computational power into CPU mining of Monero using its useful proof-of-work mechanism.

The interesting part is how quickly this escalated. Just a few months ago, Qubic’s participation in Monero’s hashrate was below 2%, but now it has jumped to around 27%. That’s a pretty aggressive shift and has raised all sorts of alarms about decentralization and network security.

Ivancheglo has been clear in pointing out that this is a “demonstration of economic capability” of what Qubic can do, and denies having malicious intentions. But here’s the interesting part: he himself acknowledges that this activity could disrupt Monero’s normal operation. It’s almost like saying, “We don’t want to break anything, but we know we could.”

The Monero community is understandably quite concerned. A single actor controlling nearly a third of the network’s computational power is precisely the kind of 51% risk scenario everyone wants to avoid. Sergey Ivancheglo and his team announced they would stop publicly reporting their participation in the hashrate starting in early August, arguing that they aim to “raise awareness about centralization risks.”

This move raises tough questions: is it really a technology demonstration or pressure on Monero? Ivancheglo’s stance is ambiguous, which will likely intensify the debate in the coming months. In any case, it’s a reminder of why true decentralization remains one of the biggest challenges in this space.