Qubic says it is moving past talk and into implementation: the project announced it is actively developing a Dogecoin mining integration that would bring ASIC miners into its “useful Proof-of-Work” (uPoW) model.
In an X post on Jan. 22, 2026, Qubic highlighted a decisive community vote — “DOGE won with 301 votes” — and warned this won’t be a simple plug-and-play upgrade. “Integrating ASIC hardware into uPoW requires real engineering, deep protocol work, and time to do it right,” the team wrote, adding that development is underway and that bringing Dogecoin into uPoW could move the concept “beyond theory, into scale.”
Why this matters
- The move reopens familiar security questions around majority-hashrate risk. Qubic’s announcement follows a controversial August 2025 “takeover demonstration” on Monero, when the project said it had achieved “over 51% hashrate dominance” during parts of the experiment and reported a brief chain disruption that included a six-block reorganization and orphaned blocks.
- That episode intensified debate about how quickly external incentives can concentrate hashpower. Subsequent analysis, however, cast doubt on the most extreme interpretation of Qubic’s Monero claims. A December 2025 reconstruction of the activity described Qubic’s operation as a publicly advertised “selfish mining campaign,” finding detected hashrate intervals in the 23–34% range and no evidence of sustained 51% control.
Why Dogecoin is different
Dogecoin’s mining landscape is structurally unlike Monero’s CPU-oriented RandomX environment. Dogecoin uses Scrypt and has supported merged mining with Litecoin since 2014, giving it access to a large installed base of Scrypt ASIC miners — a hardware reality Qubic itself cites as central to the effort. Integrating ASICs into uPoW will therefore require deeper protocol and engineering work than a simple pool launch.
Economic and security calculations
Analysts say the practical barriers to a brute-force take-over of Dogecoin are substantial. In an August 2025 research note, 21Shares estimated that to directly match and exceed Dogecoin’s network would require roughly 2.78 PH/s of hashing capacity — on the order of $2.85 billion in hardware plus roughly $2.5 million per day in electricity, before logistics and other costs. That makes outright purchase of a majority unlikely.
A more plausible — and thornier — risk is what 21Shares calls “vampire mining”: engineering incentives or integrations that persuade existing Scrypt ASIC operators to route significant hashpower through a Qubic-mediated setup. If successful, that approach could concentrate effective mining control without Qubic needing to buy an entire ASIC fleet.
What’s next
Qubic says development has begun and frames the Dogecoin integration as a step to scale uPoW. The effort will likely invite renewed scrutiny from researchers, exchanges, and miners as technical details and incentive mechanisms emerge.
At press time DOGE traded at $0.12521.
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