Web3 is Going Just Great

A company called Qubic has been waging the 51% attack by offering economic rewards for miners who join the Qubic mining pool. They claim to be "stress testing" Monero, though many in the Monero community have condemned Qubic for what they see as a malicious attack on the network or a marketing stunt.

Though Qubic has claimed to have achieved 51% of the Monero hashrate, these claims have been disputed. However, they do appear to be very close if not there already, and there have been multiple chain reorganizations — including a 6-block reorganization — suggesting that Qubic has established significant control over Monero mining.

The incidents have been widely condemned as both dangerous and misogynistic by players, coaches, and the league, which has since implemented penalties including immediate ejection, a minimum one-year ban, and possible felony charges for offenders.

"It's super disrespectful," said Chicago Sky player Elizabeth Williams. "The sexualization of women is what's used to hold women down, and this is no different," stated coach Cheryl Reeve of the Minnesota Lynx. "The intent is to sexualize and demean the women players because they are women," wrote Glamour.

"This is empowering to every fucking crypto community to start thinking outside the box. Get creative and fucking do something that makes people actually laugh," said a member of the memecoin community, cheering the incidents for their virality and the subsequent impact on the coin price. The meme was even amplified by Donald Trump Jr., who posted to Instagram a photoshopped image of President Trump dropping one of the green sex toys off the roof of the White House and onto a group of women playing basketball below.

Researchers at Sentinel Labs have estimated that more than $1 million has been drained from various wallets via these malicious contracts.

Credix subsequently announced they had negotiated with the thief, who they said agreed to return the funds "in return for money fully paid by the credix treasury". They did not disclose how much they paid to the hacker.

However, shortly after this announcement, the company deleted its social media accounts and disappeared, leading some to wonder if the "hack" may have in fact been a rug pull by insiders. The promised reimbursements have not yet materialized.

This isn't the first sign of shakiness at Abra, which was alleged to be insolvent by the Texas state securities regulator in 2023. The company wound down its US operations in mid-2023 and refunded $82 million to US customers, after reaching a settlement with 25 state regulators. Abra also faced a lawsuit from the US federal securities regulator in 2024, which they settled in August of that year.