Cardano Founder Highlights Midnight’s Strength After Monero Hit by 51% Attack

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has stressed the need for stronger blockchain defenses after a major security breach shook the Monero network.

Responding to the recent incident, he called attention to Cardano’s Midnight sidechain and its Minotaur consensus protocol as examples of how to build a network that can withstand such threats.

Notably, Hoskinson explained that Minotaur uses a multi-resource consensus model that blends Proof of Work (PoW) and Proof of Stake (PoS). This approach spreads control across different types of resources, preventing any single one from dominating the network

Monero Faces 51% Attack

Shortly after, Qubic’s pool reached over 3 GH/s in mining power, about 52.7% of the entire Monero network. This gave them the ability to reorganize the blockchain, orphan competing blocks, and dictate transaction history for extended periods

Notably, Qubic claimed the takeover was a stress test meant to expose weaknesses rather than a malicious strike, but the development still triggered concerns about double-spending and censorship.

Amid these concerns, the Monero (XMR) market reacted quickly. Specifically, Monero’s price has dropped more than 5% today alone, sliding from around $267 to under $244 before slightly recovering to the current price of $253. This month, XMR has fallen about 17% despite the broader market’s recovery.

Reports also showed Qubic sold a large share of its mined Monero for stablecoins, using the funds to buy and burn its own QUBIC tokens. This approach helps to boost its token’s value while maintaining mining dominance on Monero.

Cardano Sidechain Midnight Prevents This Using Minotaur

Several industry commentators have highlighted that the episode reveals how vulnerable single-resource consensus systems can be. Notably, when one party gathers enough of the same resource, in Monero’s case, hash power, they can effectively take over. Hoskinson said this is exactly the risk Minotaur was built to prevent.

For the uninitiated, Minotaur powers Midnight, Cardano’s fourth-generation blockchain focused on privacy, scalability, and interoperability. Midnight uses advanced Zero-Knowledge Proofs, specifically ZK-SNARKs, to verify transactions without exposing private data. These privacy features demand heavy computation, making efficient and secure resource management essential.

Minotaur blends multiple forms of consensus to make it impossible for one resource alone to control the network. This bolsters security and also keeps computational loads balanced across participants. Cardano Stake Pool Operators, who validate for both Cardano and Midnight, can run the system without their hardware becoming overloaded.