Bitcoin’s network demonstrates strong resilience against random undersea cable cuts, requiring 72-92% of cables to fail before significant disruption, according to an 11-year data analysis. However, targeted attacks on key internet chokepoints or major hosting providers like Hetzner and Amazon could severely paralyze the network, highlighting centralized vulnerabilities. The widespread adoption of Tor, now used by 64% of nodes, has further enhanced the network’s resistance to outages.
A new study analyzing 11 years of network data reveals Bitcoin’s robustness against random subsea internet cable failures. Significant disruption would only occur if 72% to 92% of cables were severed simultaneously.
The research examined 68 verified cable fault events from 2014 to 2025. Eighty-seven percent of these outages impacted fewer than five percent of network nodes.
Built-in global redundancy allows the peer-to-peer network to adjust its data flow without major issues. Price fluctuations showed almost no correlation with these infrastructure disruptions.
Nevertheless, the research has found that targeted attacks present a serious threat. Strikes on critical cable chokepoints could disrupt the network with just a 20% failure rate.
Attacks on major centralized hosting providers like Hetzner, OVH, and Amazon are an even greater vulnerability. Network paralysis could occur with only 5% of these key hosting infrastructures disabled.
The adoption of Tor has significantly strengthened the network’s physical resilience. Approximately 64% of Bitcoin nodes now operate using the privacy-focused routing protocol.
This reliance on Tor’s geographically concentrated relay infrastructure makes large-scale disruption more difficult. The researchers noted that this underscores the role of decentralized infrastructure in Bitcoin’s security.
